


Dependent

by Maisie_top_trash



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Abuse, Chronic Illness, Domestic Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another, Gaslighting, M/M, Manipulation, Medical Trauma, Munchausen Syndrome, Munchausen by proxy, Poisoning, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24296716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maisie_top_trash/pseuds/Maisie_top_trash
Summary: Josh had to keep him around somehow, he needed to be needed and nothing was off limits. Anything to keep Tyler close. Anything to feel important.Russian translation
Relationships: Tyler Joseph/Josh Dun
Comments: 97
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW:  
> Abuse - physical and mental, gaslighting etc  
> Medical trauma  
> Emetophobia  
> \- if you have any specifics that you’d like to check with me then feel free to ask <3
> 
> This first chapter is setting up their normal before we start varying from that, I promise their dynamic gets more interesting so please give me a chance and keep with it

“Okay so I like to begin my consultations with learning a bit more about the problem, give me some wider context, and then we’ll get down into the nitty gritty of your symptoms and what I can offer you to help alleviate them,” the lady had 5 necklaces stacked on top of each other going right down to her lap, her hair kept off her face with a silk head scarf. 

“Well it all started about 2 years, Ty, he had an accident, a fall down the stairs in our apartment building, and he hasn’t been right since.” Josh answered on his behalf, keeping a firm grip of his hand. “Everything had been perfect up until then, he was completely healthy and there was nothing abnormal going on at all, we were happy, thinking of getting married, and then yeah, he fell and hit his head. I had to call an ambulance because he was knocked out and I couldn’t get him to wake up, and at the hospital they did a bunch of tests and said he had a concussion as well as a broken wrist, so they kept him in for observations and then after 24 hours they discharged him.”  
“And the symptoms mentioned in your email, did they start straight away?”

Tyler couldn’t remember much from that time. He was grateful Josh was there to answer for him. 

“Some of them started straight away, some have developed since. The dizziness and fatigue and muscle pains, they were all immediate, and he had a lot of vomiting back then as well, which he still has but nowhere near as bad, and the confusion’s been there since the beginning,”  
“How about the seizures you mentioned?”  
“They began a few weeks after the accident, and then the chest pains and diarrhoea came later,”   
“Tremors.” Tyler whispered.   
“Oh yes, and the tremors started a few weeks after the fall too,” 

“Did you return to the hospital at all?”  
“Of course we did, of course, and they were absolutely fucking shit. At first they kept dismissing us, saying it was the concussion and it would go away by itself, but it wasn’t getting better and I was so scared that I was dragging Tyler to the ER nearly every day, but they kept belittling him and saying we had to be patient and he’d heal. Then the seizures started and they were interested for all of 5 minutes, but when he didn’t respond to the medication they put him on, they insisted he was admitted for a 7 day EEG and you know how much they wanted to charge us for that? $42,637. We don’t have that kinda money, so I told the doctor we couldn’t and ever since that decision, Tyler’s had Faker slapped on his medical records. Even when we took out a loan and got him a 24 hour EEG, which showed plenty of seizure activity, they still didn’t wipe the red flag off him. We’ve seen 2 dozen doctors for all his issues and they’ve all happily taken our money and then dropped as soon as he proved remotely complex, so we made the decision, we’re done with western medicine screwing us over, and we’re never taking him back to a hospital again.”

“Did you ever receive any kind of diagnosis or answers?”  
“None that matter since they’ve never lead us to treatments that work.”  
“Epilepsy.” Tyler’s numb lips fumbled the word.   
“Epilepsy got confirmed after the EEG, and we’ve tried every medication under the sun for it, only for them to turn him into an incontinent zombie. We’ve got him on 3 now because we have to or he seizes all day, 2 maintenance ones and an emergency one for breaking his big episodes, but we want to wean him off to reduce his side effects. He also got diagnosed with a functional GI problem and he’s on something for his stool and something for his nausea, and he takes beta blockers for his chest pain and tremors, and painkillers, plenty of painkillers, and antidepressants.”  
“That’s a whole lotta medication,”  
“He used to be on a whole lot more before we started weaning,” Josh sighed.   
“Let’s see if we can reduce that further, hey Tyler?” The lady smiled at him but he could barely nod. 

“What are your hopes and expectations from traditional herbal medicine?”   
“Complete healing.” Josh said with no room for error. “At least that’s my hope, but with our history I’m not expecting much.”  
“Of course our goal is to address every aspect of your wellbeing, however just so I know, what do you feel are your top 3 symptoms most in need of management?”  
“Definitely his-“  
“Sorry Josh, I’ll take Tyler’s answers first, then I’ll check in with you,”  
“Fine.”

Tyler could feel everyone’s eyes on him, and it didn’t feel good. 

“Um, uh, I uh, uhm, uh,”  
“He gets overwhelmed and overstimulated by this kind of thing, it makes his confusion worse,” Josh told the lady, then put his hand on the base of Tyler’s neck so to have his full and undivided attention. “Tyler sweetheart, take a breath, I’m here. Do you know where you are?”  
“Y-yeh,”  
“Good, and did you hear when Dawn asked you a question?”  
“Um, uh,”  
“Dawn wants to know what symptoms you want to focus on improving?”  
“I just, uh, I just wanna get better.” 

Tyler had his first NG tube placed 4 months after his fall. 

He’d been admitted after having 3 big seizures in 2 hours that had scared Josh, of course these days they dealt with that quantity regularly, but back then they were less versed and easily spooked. He’d had another 2 seizures at the hospital and the doctors had ordered a tube be put down his nose to provide him with nutrition as they’d suspected he’d be in for a long time, too sick to eat. 

Thankfully the doctors had been wrong and he was feeling better after only two nights, so the tube was removed and he was sent home with Josh, but it was the first of many he’d had shoved through his nostril in the 2 years since he got sick. 

Only maybe a week after that first experience with tubes, Josh had booked him an urgent appointment with his gastro doctor, requesting they placed a feeding tube for long term use. The doctor declined, saying Tyler was able to support himself on the food he could consume orally, but Josh had fought and fought for him and finally the doctor caved, prescribing a trial period of 28 days to test whether receiving formula feeds through the NG tube would help alleviate any of his symptoms. 

It took a lot of getting used to, having a tube taped to his cheek and a pump attached to the tube for the best part of the day, but Josh seemed excited by the treatment plan and so Tyler had done his best to accept it. If he was honest, his bowels continued to swap between constipation and diarrhoea just as they always did, if anything his nausea was worse, and when he vomited - which he did several times a day every single day - the tube would sometimes get kinked up in his throat and make him feel like he was choking. Josh was always there to fix it though, he’d googled tutorials about placing nasal tubes and so every time he threw it up, his boyfriend would be there to place it again. 

After the 28 days they returned to the doctor. Tyler had foolishly been honest with him, telling him how his bowels were still irregular and his vomiting was still regular, and so the doctor had decided to put an end to the trial and take the tube out. 

Josh had not been happy. 

He’d shouted at the doctor, a lot, he’d accused the doctor of neglect and malpractice, claimed he was trying to let him starve, saying he didn’t care about anything but the money and he should be ashamed of himself for denying care to such a sick man, and then once Josh stormed out into the waiting room and started shouting to all the people out there about what a poor doctor the man was, security had thrown them out. 

The doctor said he no longer wanted to work with Tyler after that. 

Josh found him a new gastro doctor, and again pleaded for a feeding tube system, saying it was the only way to get enough calories into Tyler since he refused to eat when nauseous - which was harsh because Tyler always tried his best, but still that doctor said no. 

After the fourth doctor said no to an NG tube, Josh took matters into his own hands. 

He never told Tyler the details but he was fairly certain that the tubes came from eBay every month, and Josh always placed them himself. He didn’t want Tyler using them outside of the apartment because he didn’t want people to stare at him, but whenever they were at home, Josh made sure to thread the tube through Tyler’s nostril and hook him up to a pump for 24 hours a day. 

They couldn’t get the same formula that the hospital had provided, however Josh selflessly made home-blends for Tyler instead. Sunday was the big day when he’d spend hours cooking up massive batches of nutritious food to be watered down and blended until thin enough to flow through the lumen, and even though they bypassed his tastebuds, Tyler always appreciated how much effort Josh put into his meals. 

Today he was going to be fed blended sweet potatoes, cooked turkey, and carrot, mixed with bone broth. 

First he had the small matter of needing his tube placing again though after it had been removed for his herbalist consultation. 

“Alright, you ready darling?”  
“Um, can I have a bag?”  
“You’re gonna be fine, I’ll do it smoothly, I promise you won’t even feel it, let alone choke on it,”  
“Just don’t wanna vomit on myself now I’m clean,” Tyler had just had a bath, or more accurately, Josh had just bathed him. He couldn’t ever be trusted alone in case he had a fit in the water, which had happened today, although thankfully it had just been a short complex partial where he’d lost consciousness and smacked his lips for 90 seconds, which was far easier for Josh to manage than when he had his massive thrashing tonic clonics in the water. 

“Here ya go angel,” Josh gave him an emesis bag with a smile, being patient as Tyler’s shaking hands struggled to take it from him. 

The hospital grade emesis bags were plastic and disposable, and most noticeably has a rigid circle opening and could lock, meaning it was easy to aim when the vomit came, and easy to contain once he’d caught it. They were more expensive than the alternatives but when you vomited as much as he did, it was worth investing in something that made the ordeal slightly easier. 

“We need to get this in so you can start your feed Ty, you haven’t been hooked up in 3 hours now and your blood sugar is going to be tanking and I don’t want you having a hypo. You know you can’t maintain your own sugars for this long.”

He couldn’t remember that he had issues with his blood sugar. Josh was better at remembering details like that. 

“Sorry,”  
“Don’t apologise, I’m only trying to give you the best care, you know that, don’t you?”  
“Yeh,”  
“So will you let me put the NG tube in?”  
“Okay,”

Josh was kneeling down in front of the couch Tyler was slouched against, unable to hold himself up on a chair without support these days, especially after something as challenging as leaving the house. Even though he’d used the wheelchair Josh had bought him, the consultation had drained him and he felt close to tears because he was so exhausted. 

“Relax,” Josh put on his favourite blue gloves and pulled the long piece of tubing out of its packaging, then held the end to Tyler’s right nostril, slowly and carefully threading it in. 

It tickled a little as it moved along his nasal cavity, however the worst part of the whole procedure was the moment it hit his nasopharynx. Even though he knew it was coming, he immediately retched. 

“Breathe, you’re okay,” he thankfully hadn’t thrown up, only gagged, and Josh pushed on, forcing the tube down the back of his throat. 

“Time to start swallowing, can you hold your own cup today?” Josh held onto the tube with one hand and produced a two-handled beaker with a straw with the other. Tyler’s tremors were bad that afternoon and he had a little trouble coordinating them to find the drink in space, but the handles helped him grip it and he was able to take small sips of water to help guide the tube through his oesophagus. 

“You’re doing so well sweetheart, almost there, almost done,” he kept threading and threading and threading until the majority of the tube was inside, then he reached down to grab the roll of tape and cut off a strip to secure it to Tyler’s cheek. The tape was itchy. 

The final step was to check the tube was in his stomach, not curled or kinked or stuck somewhere along the way, and Josh did that by getting a syringe and pulling aspirate. It took him a moment to get anything, but he then when it finally came up, he tested the liquid on the pH strips they had. 

“3, wonderful, we’re done,” he smiled, pulling off his gloves and collecting up the packaging for the trash.   
“Thanks Josh,”  
“No problemo,”  
“Seriously, thank you, you’re the best. Nobody else looks after their partners as well as you look after me,”  
“It’s because I love you,” he kissed Tyler’s head. “I’m gonna go grab your pump and your feed so we can get you going, then I’ll come sit with you for the rest of the day, yeah?”  
“I love you Josh,” 

Tyler had a big cluster of seizures within 10 minutes of his feed starting. A big bad cluster. 

It started with a violent tonic clonic that lasted 6 minutes, then he didn’t come around again afterwards but instead remained unconscious and unmoving for 12 minutes, then started having a violent complex partial seizure where his eyes fluttered and his cheeks twitched and his head wouldn’t stop bouncing rapidly to the left which went on for 9 long minutes. After that he lay still again, but not for long because within 3 minutes he rolled into a second tonic clonic so intense that he’d thrown up everywhere, and without a break went straight into another complex partial of twitching, this time his right arm contracting upwards for 11 minutes. Following that complex partial, he stayed passed out for almost 30 minutes, which Josh had thought finally marked the end of the cluster, only to be proved wrong by yet another complex partial of twitching and twisting. 

All in all he’d been seizing for an hour and a half. 

There’s no way to explain what that does to somebody in a way that can be truly understood. It’s physically exhausting to be involuntarily moving at such an unnatural pace for that long, especially for someone with fatigue as severe as Tyler, and his muscles ached to the extent that he’d been sobbing for the rest of the evening, unable to move his lead-like body without screaming in pain. When Josh carried him to their bed, it hurt so badly that he passed out again. 

Beyond the pain and exhaustion was the mess. Tyler had been using condom catheters with Josh’s support for the past year to reduce the embarrassment and inconvenience of the incontinence he intermittently dealt with, but in the fury of the jerks it had slipped off and so he was soaked in his own urine. He’d also vomited all over himself, and a thick stream of frothy drool had coated his face and neck. The sweat sticking to his skin and the tears running down his face were just more bodily fluids to contend with. 

He could be confused at the best of times, however after 90 minutes of his brain ruthlessly misfiring, it took over an hour before he could begin to understand what had happened, and another hour beyond that before he could behind to try and speak. Josh wanted him to get an AAC device to communicate with when he got into that state, something that used eye gaze perhaps, but Tyler couldn’t even form sentences in his mind so he was hesitant to invest in such expensive equipment. His brain was complete mush after epilepsy struck and he was incredibly vulnerable, so he just appreciated how lucky he was to have Josh there, protecting him. 

“I think it was the shock to your system that triggered it. You went 3 hours without a single drop of food in your stomach and then suddenly you’re hit with 100ml/hour, it’s too much for your body to cope with Ty, it doesn’t know how to adjust from having nothing to suddenly having a constant flow,” Josh was thinking out loud whilst Tyler lay in bed, his head in his lap. 

“We need to stop interrupting your feeds. You need to be attached 24 hours a day every day from now on, you hear me? That way there’s no sudden shocks,”  
“Mmm,”  
“Which also means you can’t be going out on any more jollies. I get that you were really excited about seeing the herbalist today and going to her shop, but I don’t think we can justify that many seizures just for you to enjoy yourself for a minute - we need to be strategic and make sacrifices Ty, and ask whether it’s worth making yourself this sick.”

He couldn’t remember the trip out. 

“From now on we need to ask your practitioners to do phone or Skype appointments so we can keep you at home, or else we’re going to have to stop using their services. It’s not safe for you to be going out.”

He was dribbling again, but Josh had a spit rag on the go and mopped him up. 

“I’ll stay home with you at all times too, zero exceptions. I’ll get Jordan to bring us groceries and your medications, and anything else we might need - there’s no single thing I can think of which is worth leaving this place if the consequence is you getting more and more brain damage. You know you don’t heal from this kinda thing Ty, you know this isn’t going to undo, you know every single time you push yourself to this point it changes the structure of your brain and makes you a little bit worse. I can’t see you get any worse, please baby,”

Tyler used to do lots of research on epilepsy when his seizures first started, desperate for answers, however as they’d got worse and worse, his ability to comprehend complex medical journals had deteriorated immensely and he now relied on Josh to keep up to date on the latest studies. 

What he’d been informed on was that big bad clusters were doing irreversible damage to him, parts of his brain were dying every single time he had the immense episodes, and that terrified him. He’d already declined so much in the relatively short time he’d had epilepsy and the thought of how bad he could be in 10 years - a foaming drooling vegetable - easily convinced Tyler to take every possible precaution to avoid it. 

If that meant not leaving their home again, he’d do it without complaint. 

“I love you so much Ty, I hate seeing you like this, I just want the best for you my sweet sweet boy,” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week on Maisie's Brain Is Mush:  
> I thought I posted this ages okay and I was kinda bummed by how little reaction I'd had in my inbox,,, until I checked and realised I accidentally scheduled for this to come out in June rather than May. Oops?
> 
> Any way, here it is! 7 chapters so I'm gonna post twice a week to get this out to y'all at a manageable pace. Little different from my usual but thought it was an interesting idea that isn't overly used, lemme know what you think - also taking requests for consideration xx
> 
> Much love  
> Maisie
> 
> Twitter: anathemasparks  
> Tumblr: anathematrash  
> Email for fanart/long form responses: ao3.maisie@gmail.com


	2. Chapter 2

“3, 2, 1,”

Josh transferred Tyler with ease. He’d lost a lot of weight recently so he was easy to carry, and Josh was strong and technically knowledgable so it wasn’t difficult for him to lift his boyfriend out of bed and slot him into his wheelchair. With that being said, it wasn’t executed completely flawlessly because his feet were hanging to the right, not on their footplates, and his neck was getting so weak that he couldn’t support his head and it had swung down to touch his chest. 

“I’m sorry sweetheart, I’m sorry, I promise I’m working on getting you that hoist, okay? And it’s going to be a mobile hoist so I’ll be able to lift you up out of bed and move you straight through to the front room, rather than moving you to your wheelchair for 2 minutes and then moving you to the couch straight after. It’s gonna be smoother and easier and better, I promise,”

Tyler didn’t think they really needed an expensive electric hoist, however he reminded himself that it wasn’t him who was doing the heavy lifting. If Josh was bringing it up, his back must have been hurting, and so it wasn’t up to Tyler to decide he didn’t deserve a gadget to relieve that whilst he was surrounded by equipment for him. 

“That’s better, hey poppet?” Josh picked up the travel pillow Tyler had bought in an airport a lifetime ago and slotted it around his neck, helping him to support and restack his head. Josh then helped Tyler put his feet in the right place, and remained crouched in front of him, smiling. 

“I need to put your harness on, are you going to fight me?”  
“No, it’s, it’s fine, leave it,”  
“Ty darling, what if you have a seizure and I can’t catch you in time? If you fall you’ll really hurt yourself,”  
“We’re only going to the next room,”  
“All it takes is half a second. It doesn’t matter whether we’re walking to the next room or the next state, I need you secured whilst I’m pushing from behind because otherwise you could tip out, and what if you hit your head Tyler? Do you really think you can contend with another brain injury? Do you really think I can contend with another of your brain injuries?”   
“Sorry, o-okay,”

It was when he was reminded about the impact his existence had on Josh that he became the most cautious. Josh sacrificed everything to be his carer, devoted his life to the unglamorous job of catching puke and timing seizures, and it was beyond thoughtless to risk increasing the burden on his shoulders. 

For that reason, he allowed his boyfriend to help his arms slip into the X shaped chest strap, then he did up his lap belt for him, then he even tied Tyler’s feet down. There was absolutely no way he’d be able to fall out, even if the wheelchair did a 360 flip. 

It was a new wheelchair as of 2 weeks ago. His old one was basic but good enough, however Josh had bought the latest edition second hand from a teenager with severe cerebral palsy who’d outgrown it - it had a moulded seat rather than a flat pillow base, and a head rest, and lateral supports, and the ability to tilt backwards 30 degrees. It was incredible, yet when Tyler saw it for the first time, he’d cried over just how disabled he’d become. 

“Comfy? Supported?” Josh checked, pulling a cloth from his pocket and tucking it into the collar of Tyler’s shirt. He only drooled when he was seizing so didn’t need the rag yet, but Josh liked to keep it there in anticipation.   
“Yeh,”  
“Okay sweetheart, I’ll go slowly so to reduce the chance of you getting nauseous, if you need me to go slower then say so,”

Josh did as he said and started moving incredibly slowly, almost at a snail’s pace. Tyler knew the route incredibly well, memorising every detail from the way the papers were stacked on the bookshelf that had been overthrown for storing his medical records, to the tiniest of lines in the parquet hardwood flooring. It was his world now, that short route from the bedroom to the front room. 

“Don’t, don’t stop, I like moving, please don’t stop,”  
“This is the couch darling,”   
“I don’t wanna stop yet,”  
“Tyler, this is the couch, this is where you like to sit,”  
“Please Josh, can, can you just take me to the kitchen and back? Or maybe even to the end of the street and back? I’m so bored of the same two rooms, please, can we keep moving? Just go a little bit longer,”  
“You’re getting confused again,”  
“I’m not, I’m just asking for a change of scenery, please Josh,”  
“You’re getting confused again, you know it’s not safe for you outside, you know you don’t have a strong enough immune system to cope with going outside, and even the kitchen can be dangerous for you Ty, what if you have another allergic reaction like last time?”

Tyler knew he was right. The last time he’d gone into the kitchen, he’d had a sneezing burst that rolled into a big seizure. He shouldn’t be risking himself like that, there were far too many scents and residues in that room for him to cope with. 

“I know you’re getting frustrated with your limitations, I know it’s hard for you to adjust, but sweetheart I’m on your side. I’m trying to help you, you know that, I’m trying to protect you. I don’t want to keep saying no to you, I don’t want to be the bad guy who stops you doing what it is that you want, but I can’t sit back and let you hurt yourself, I love you too much.”  
“I love you too,”

“This is hard for me too you know,” Josh’s voice dropped.   
“I appreciate that,”  
“When I met you you could do anything, we used to run together, and explore the forests, and stay up all night doing whatever the hell we wanted. Now you can’t even keep your own head up. I love you, nothing will ever change that, I made you a promise after your fall that I’d always be there to support you and I’m not going to break that, even though you’re so much worse than I had ever expected, but Ty I need you to be working with me, not against me. When I say you need your harness on, you need your harness on, and when I say you can’t go outside or in the kitchen, you can’t go outside or in the kitchen. We’re a team so let’s work together, yeah?”  
“Yeh,”

“I think this conversation has worn you out, it’s probably best we put you back into bed,”  
“I can rest on the couch,” he whispered.   
“Ty what did we just say? We need to be on the same page.”  
“Sorry, sorry, okay. I trust you, and if you think bed is better for me then I’ll go to bed again,”  
“Good.”

“We’re almost out.” Josh peered into the little tincture bottle whilst holding it to the light. “I’ll text Jordan to pick up some more, hopefully he can bring it with everything else tomorrow, but if not then we’ve probably got enough for 3 or 4 more days which is plenty of time for him to get it to us,”

Tyler liked the CBD oil. If he was completely honest, he hadn’t seen any positive changes in his health since he started using it, but he could rationalise that by blaming all the other meds he had started around the same time and the natural trajectory of his conditions - there was a definite possibility that the CBD was slowing down his decline, and that was all it took, a fragment of hope, for him to become invested in the blue bottle. 

“Lift,” Josh had the dropper ready so Tyler curled back his tongue and allowed his boyfriend to drip his dose into his mouth, then he lowered his tongue and kept the metallic oil there to allow it to absorb directly into his bloodstream. 

The instructions with the bottle said to keep it there for a minute before swallowing, but Josh suggested keeping it sublingual until the entire dose was absorbed, which could sometimes take upwards of ten minutes. 

He was probably right, it was better to persevere rather than giving up before the job was done, however it could be tricky to keep the foul tasting stuff in his mouth, especially when he hadn’t eaten anything orally in months thanks to the feeding tubes. His mouth wasn’t used to dealing with flavour, especially not such prominently overwhelming-

“Gah, Ty!” Josh gasped as Tyler vomited all over them both. 

As soon as the first wave came, so did a second, and Josh leapt up and grabbed an embag for him from the drawer, meaning he managed to catch the third surge of puke for the most part. 

“I told you we’re running out, why did you go and waste it?!”

Vomit on his mouth, vomit on his chin, vomit on his neck, vomit on his shirt, vomit on his hands, vomit on his lap, and vomit on his boyfriend, Tyler did not feel good. 

It was a heavy weakness that drained his body of any energy, but his gag reflex felt overly primed, and his stomach kept lurching as it contended with the rapid change in volume. His tremors meant he struggled to keep hold of the quarter filled bag which dangled in the pool of yellow tinged beige in his lap, staining his pyjamas and his bedding yet again. He went through at least half a dozen sets a week and he was tired, so unbelievably tired of managing the bullshit. The smell, the sight, the shame. 

His feeding tube thankfully hadn’t come up though, so it wasn’t all bad. 

Josh had taken his splashed shirt off and thrown it onto the duvet which would have to be washed, and was passive aggressively pulling blueroll and wipes out of the cupboard, huffing. Tyler hated when he upset him. 

“I’m sorry,” he started to cry, tears spilling from both cheeks to meet the sticky clumps on his chin.   
“It’s fine.” Josh snatched the bag off him and locked it, putting it on the side table, then pulled the sheets back and folded them over themselves to contain the bulk of the mess.   
“I’m really sorry-“  
“I said it’s fine, okay?!”

Tyler didn’t have any option but to lay back against his stack of pillows, powerless to fix the situation he’d caused. Josh paused his pump for a moment then disconnected the tube so that he could take Tyler’s shirt off over his head for him, then wiped his chest and his face far more harshly than he needed to, before scooping up all the puky laundry and dumping it on the bathroom floor for dealing with later. Next he got out another of Tyler’s oversized shirts and dressed him in it, then reconnected the tube and restarted the feed, then threw away the bag of puke and got out a new one in case it happened again, then took the lavender mist spray and pumped it a few times to try and disperse the smell, then he put a new shirt on for himself, then took a cup from the bathroom and half filled it with water, all in silence. 

“Why are you crying?” His voice was still stern but slightly less abrasive as he pulled another baby wipe from the pack and cleaned Tyler’s face again, mopping up the tears as well as the residual sick.   
“I don’t know,” Tyler whispered honestly. 

“Did I miss anywhere?”  
“No,” he sniffed.   
“Have some water, rinse and spit, I’ll hold the glass so you don’t drop it,” Josh instructed, raising the water to Tyler’s cracked lips so he could sip just a little and wash it around his mouth, then spit it into the bag his boyfriend provided. They did it a second time, and a third, then Josh put everything back on the bedside table and sighed. 

“I think I need to redo your lunch meds as well as your CBD, they probably didn’t have enough time to be effective,”  
“Ok,”

All his medication was stored in a huge plastic crate in the corner, and normally Josh spent a couple of hours each week filling up the dosette boxes with all the required pills, but since he’d already consumed today’s allotted dosages, Josh had to rummage through the thousands of orange tubes and blister packs to collect the variety of pills. It took a while and Tyler couldn’t stop himself from silently crying as he watched. 

“They’re going here for now, we’ll take them in a minute, first I wanna know what’s going on sweetheart. Why are you upset? Talk to me,” suddenly sweet Josh was back, abandoning the multicoloured pile of pills on the side table and focussing all his attention on Tyler. 

“I feel bad,”  
“Physically?” He checked and Tyler managed a small nod. “Worse than normal?”  
“Same as normal, a-and, and that’s crap. I don’t want my normal to be feeling bad anymore,”  
“Oh darling,”

Josh climbed back into bed next to him, then proposed something. 

“Can I hold you? Would you like that? Just like I do when you’re twitching?”  
“Yeh,” He knew Josh liked to hold him as if he was an infant, and if it made Josh happy then Tyler would happily oblige, not wanting to rock the boat again and loving to see that softness in his boyfriend’s eyes. 

“Alright angel, alright, I’ve got you, you’re okay,” he scooped Tyler up and lifted him onto his own lap with ease, cradling him with his head resting in the crook of his elbow. Josh even gently rocked him, and stroked the cheek without the tube with his thumb, occasionally brushing tears. 

“You know I’ll always love you, no matter how bad you get, I’ll always love you,”  
“I don’t want to get worse,”  
“You’re not going to, I won’t allow it. You know how deep into the research I am, when you fall asleep I’m up for another 4 or 5 hours every night, trawling through papers and journals and forums, and I’m learning so much and it’s inevitable for it all to come together soon and for some serious progress to be made, hey? I’m gonna make you better Ty, that’s my vow to you,” 

“What have you found since last time you updated me?”  
“I don’t want to scare you,”  
“I’m scared not knowing, please.”   
“Well I’ve been looking deeper into chronic Lyme and it’s looking more and more-“  
“I tested negative in the hospital,”  
“The hospital also said you could eat by yourself and you can’t. Doctors don’t know everything Tyler, they’re all just the lapdogs of big pharma, and their labs give back false results all the time. I really think Lyme is the answer to a lot of the mysterious symptoms, and treatment can be really complicated and interfere with your other conditions, but I’m gonna find you the right course I promise. I also think we need to look into mast cell activation syndrome, which is essentially really severe allergies to random things - you know how you get really breathless sometimes? And you feel like you can’t breathe? I think your mast cells are closing up your airways, so we should start trying to get you an epipen and emergency airway equipment, just in case you suddenly take a turn for the worse.”

He got breathless when he had his panic attacks, and when he had his seizures, but he’d always assumed they were related to the circumstance. To learn that there was a possibility his airway was genuinely closing up and it wasn’t all in his mind was incredibly daunting. 

“Then the other big thing I’m concerned about is your hydration. I’ve been making note when I empty your catheter bag and I really don’t think you’re getting enough fluids. We could try upping the water content of your feeds, but then we’d have to increase the flow rate to make sure you’re getting enough calories. I’m worried the higher volume will make you vomit more, because I’m more confident than ever that you have gastroparesis and your stomach wall is paralysed so it won’t be able to cope with that, and if your vomit increases then you’ll only become more dehydrated, so we need to investigate other ways of getting you hydrated,”

Tyler could hear his words, hear the sounds coming from his mouth, however it was like he could only hear a recording that was out of sync with the speed of Josh’s mouth, jarring. His vision was bleeding black and dancing with spots, and he could feel himself slipping away. 

“Ty? Tyler sweetheart, I think you’re about to have a seizure, your pupils are dilating-“

“Do you feel well enough to work on your physio tonight? Or should we have a rest day and work tomorrow instead?”  
“Today, I, I, I wanna get stronger today.”  
“Good answer,” Josh kissed his forehead. 

“Can I try sitting up?”  
“Sitting? Maybe, um, or we could work on your grip? I know the last stress balls we had were too firm for you but I bought 3 different ones that are a lot softer so hopefully you’ll be strong enough to squeeze them, hey? Should we try that?”  
“Sure,” 

In his heart, Tyler knew he had very limited energy and would much prefer to prioritise sitting over gripping. His grip wasn’t the only problem he had with his hands, he also had a constant tremor that meant he could barely use them, and squeezing a stress ball a few times wasn’t going to fix that. However with practice he had hope that he could one day sit independently again, or at the very least be able to prevent himself from slipping or slouching to one direction when he was against a surface. He’d like to be able support himself sat on the couch without Josh needing to pack him in with cushions, a simple goal, but he acknowledged that Josh might be protecting him by not promoting that as a goal in case it became painfully clear it was out of his reach. 

Josh was probably protecting him from disappointment. 

“Alright, what’s the most important thing to remember before we do physio?” He climbed back into bed with Tyler, holding a collection of spongy balls.   
“Patience and pacing.”  
“Patience and pacing, that’s it cupcake, I know you wanna be pushing yourself as far as you can but then we have to deal with the fallout, and we both know it’s not worth you getting sicker just for a few impressive moments of exertion. Take it steady, take it slow,”  
“Got it,”

“To start with, can you touch my hand with your right hand?” Josh held it up a little way in front of him, and Tyler’s heart dropped when he struggled to even coordinate his shaking limb to do that. “Good, and with your left?”

His left was even worse, fluttering all over the place as he tried to reach out straight in front of him, and Josh picked up on how difficult he was finding it, so moved a little closer, then held the hand and kissed it. Tyler didn’t like having to cheat on what was supposed to be the easy warm up. 

“You’re waking up those muscles, it’s okay, it’s gonna get easier,” Josh read his mind - he always knew what Tyler needed to hear, it was why he loved him so much. “Can we try again? Right hand then left?”

It didn’t feel easier, it felt harder, it felt like his arms were heavier and the distance was further, it felt like Josh was jumping around and it felt like he couldn’t do it, and he felt like a failure. 

“Ty baby, look at me, we don’t have to do this if you’re not feeling well enough. You can sleep,”  
“I wanna get strong again though,” he whispered.   
“We’ll get you strong again some day, until then I can be all the strength you need,” Josh reassured him. “How about we hold hands? We can hold hands and you can try squeezing them?”   
“Yeh,”

Josh’s hands were big, and even though he put on lotion every single day, they were rough. There had been a time when Tyler flinched when they came surging towards him, but things had changed and now he couldn’t help a little smile when Josh pressed kisses against every single one of Tyler’s knuckles. 

“Alright handsome, gimme your worst, show me what you got,” he raised his eyebrows, inciting him, and Tyler tried his best to rise to the challenge and squeeze. Even though he put all his might into closing those pesky hands of his, he knew he was barely applying any pressure, but still Josh cried out in playful fake agony, and it made Tyler chuckle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yo I meant to pop this in earlier but just to point out that I have intentionally stuck a whole bunch of bad medical advice in this - please don’t assume any of it to be correct...


	3. Chapter 3

“Come in come in, keep it down though, Ty’s still sleeping,”  
“Still? It’s 3,”  
“Sometimes he sleeps all day, and when he’s not sleeping he’s resting anyway, so it doesn’t make all that much difference. You got more bags in the car?”  
“There’s 3 more just at the bottom of steps,”  
“I’ll grab em,”

Josh’s brother had arrived. 

Jordan was their only contact with the outside world, and it hurt Tyler to hear just how excited Josh was to be able to take a few steps outside to help bring in their groceries. It was his fault that Josh never got to see anyone or go anywhere. 

“Don’t forget to antibac your hands before you touch anything please, Ty’s getting more and more sensitive by the day,”  
“This ain’t my first rodeo, I antibacked whilst you got those other ones,” Jordan’s attempt at keeping his voice down was dismal, but secretly Tyler liked being able to listen in on their conversations. 

Their footsteps were getting louder as they went into the kitchen together, which made Tyler happy because they were closer and would be easier to hear. 

“Look at my little sleeping beauty,”

Josh had a camera system set up in their bedroom so he could keep an eye on Tyler without needing to be constantly sat next to him. Originally they’d bought one from an epilepsy organisation which had software to track for seizure activity, but Josh wanted higher resolution images and so had invested in a much more expensive kit. It meant they would be able to tell his eyes were open as they stared at the monitor in the kitchen, so he shut them closed, not wanting to intrude on their conversation. 

“How many hours of your day do you spend watching your boyfriend sleep?”  
“That’s pretty much my entire existence,” Josh chuckled warmly. 

“How’s he been this week?”  
“Mixed. Tuesday was really good, he came and watched the entirety of Shrek 2 with me on the couch without anything happening, no seizures, no puke, no bathroom break, no major confusion, nothing, he did great. Then Wednesday was a shit show, literally, at one point he was crapping his brains out and then started having a big TC seizure so I had to get him down on the wet room floor, then he puked all over himself and didn’t wake up for almost an hour. So yanno, good and bad,”

Tyler wished Josh wouldn’t talk about his vulnerable moments so casually. He supposed he was breaking down the stigma surrounding them, but still, asking his consent to share his story first would have been nice. 

“When I picked up all the crap from the herbalist, she said to ask how he’s coming along. What should I say?”  
“Tell her it’s rude to gossip.”  
“Daaamn, Josh didn’t come to play today,”  
“I’m just sick of people talking about him behind his back,”  
“Like we are right now?” Jordan jibed.   
“This is different, we care, we’re invested, we’re family. Everyone else are nosey backstabbers who will take every detail I give them and twist it into something they can use as a weapon. If you tell her he managed the movie day then she’ll call us fakers for when we described his typical day. If you tell her about the bathroom incident then she’ll call us dramatic - there’s no winning with those people.”  
“You’re paranoid man, nobody’s talking like that,”  
“I’m not paranoid, I’m incredibly experienced in dealing with medical professionals, whether they’re traditional or modern, and I’ve spent years defending my disabled boyfriend from their accusations. I know what the world’s like.”

It was fair to say that Josh wasn’t a stranger to confrontation. Tyler couldn’t remember a single doctor who’d peacefully discharged or transferred him, Josh always ended every single professional relationship with some kind of showdown. Even though it was humiliating, Tyler supposed he should be grateful that he had someone willing to defend him. 

He dreaded to think where he’d be without his fierce advocacy. 

“I’ll tell herb lady to email you if she has questions.”  
“Fine.”

“You in a grump now mister?”  
“No,”  
“Good, cos look what I picked up for you in the store - family sized pack of sour patch kids!!” Jordan announced joyfully.  
“Expensive? We’re on a budget,”  
“You’re on a budget? I know for a fact that you’ve pressured and scared Mom into giving you $500 a week, which is more than she earns working 60 hour weeks by the way so she’s burning through her savings to fund this gig, plus you get disability payout and carer payout-“  
“You seriously have no idea how much it costs to be disabled. You know that hoist we just got? Over 900-“  
“Which isn’t even 2 weeks pocket money,”   
“How about the standards then, 1100 on meds every month, 150 on feeding tube supplies, 100 on catheters, 300 on-“  
“Wanna save money? How about you stop getting me to buy pesticides every week? Come on Josh, you don’t even have a garden.”  
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Josh growled.  
“I’m not stupid Josh, I know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about.”

Josh bought pesticides, Tyler knew that, he’d seen them in the cupboard before and Josh explained they did an excellent job of clearing out the drains. Considering how much lumpy puke went down the sink every single day, Tyler was grateful his partner had found a solution that would stop their pipes getting blocked and clogged. 

He didn’t understand why Jordan was being weird about it. 

“Your business is your business, I don’t understand the intricate dynamics of what’s at stake and so I won’t mention it again, I’m sorry. If you don’t want me spending 3 bucks on extra candy then I’ll pay for it this time, and I won’t go off the list next time.”  
“S’fine, wanna share them with me?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Josh’s voice cut straight through him. 

“W-water?”  
“You know you’re not supposed to do it yourself, you know it’s not safe Tyler, you might aspirate into your lungs without me, you know you have to ask me.”  
“Sorry.”  
“God’s sake, it’s like everything you do is some attempt to resist me. When will you learn that listening to me and doing as I say is in your own best interest Tyler?”

Josh was in a bad mood today. 

If Tyler was healthy enough, he would be giving his boyfriend some space, some time to himself, but because he was so sick, Josh couldn’t be awarded that basic right. Instead he still had to take care of Tyler, even when it was painfully obvious that he’d rather be doing literally anything else. 

He felt guilty, so incredibly guilty, because all Josh needed right now was one easy day, and he couldn’t provide that - he couldn’t switch off his dependency. He’d trapped Josh. He’d taken advantage of Josh’s selfless nature and trapped him in the role of carer against his will. 

He couldn’t leave now, he wouldn’t leave now, Tyler would die if he was left now. But he was also acutely aware of the small slither of possibility that Josh would throw his hands up and say enough, leaving Tyler to surely die a long painful death in that bed of theirs, and so the sick man tried his best to make it as easy for Josh as possible, including letting him get away with his fits of frustration. 

“FUCKING THING!” Josh threw Tyler’s sippy cup at the wall after struggling to take the lid off, and it made a dent. 

They kept wall patching kits in the cupboard. They’d actually bought them in bulk for a discount, and it was fair to say it was a good investment and would probably be repeated in the future so they could keep on top of all the damage done when Josh got overwhelmed. 

“Fuck this, if you want water then it’s going in your tube, I can’t be fucked with those stupid fucking cups,”

Tyler had tried to reach out and take sip from his cup because the inside of his mouth felt dry and scaly, and water in an NG tube that bypassed straight to his stomach would do absolutely nothing to help alleviate the horrible feeling, but he was scared to tell Josh that. 

“Don’t ignore me! Do you want fucking water in your tube or not?! Jesus,”  
“Yeh,”  
“Fine! Fucking hell,”

Josh tended to have his bad days around the same time as Jordan came to deliver groceries. 

It was jealousy, at least that was Tyler’s attempt at understanding it. He was jealous that Jordan got to walk out that front door, leaving him behind to spend the rest of eternity nursing his boyfriend. Tyler was jealous too, he wanted to leave the confines of his apartment for the first time in weeks, and he could only imagine how much harder it must have been on Josh. 

“What’s that?” Tyler whispered timidly as Josh approached the bed with something in plastic packaging.   
“Fuckin trust me for once, huh?” Josh hissed, walking away again, this time leaving the room. 

He was tired, he was really really tired and having to use his brain so intensely to predict his boyfriend’s next move was draining him rapidly. Even just turning his head was a big effort, but he managed to do it and as soon as he locked eyes on the packaged IV catheter on the bedside table, he started to panic. 

Whatever Josh was about to do, he didn’t want it. All he wanted was a sip of water. 

“What’s that?” He whispered again when Josh returned, carrying a jug.   
“What do you think? Water! You wanted water, I got you water, why are you being such a fucking bitch Tyler? I mean Christ, that brain of yours decide to completely fucking malfunction today?!”

He had the urge to apologise to Josh, but he didn’t. He had the urge to gulp, but he couldn’t. 

“I’m doing an IV-“  
“Josh,”  
“I YouTubed it, I know what I’m doing-“  
“Josh,”  
“Just fucking relax and I’ll do it, I know what I’m doing-“  
“Please don’t Josh,”  
“Fucking relax,” he grabbed hold of Tyler’s arm far too harshly. 

“Please don’t, please, please Josh, look at me, please don’t do this to me,”  
“You wanted water, I’m giving you water,”  
“I can drink it, I’ll drink it, please Josh, please let me drink it, please don’t do this to me, please,” the more Tyler tried to resist and pull away, the harder Josh sunk his fingers in to keep him there. 

Tyler didn’t want to cry, he didn’t want to be weak, but he was vulnerable and Josh wasn’t protecting him like he always swore he would. He was scared. 

“This could kill me Josh.”

Josh kept his hand pinning Tyler down, and used the other and his teeth to rip the packet open. 

“You have to use the right solution-“  
“I put salt in the water, I’m not a fucking dipshit Tyler, I know what I’m doing.”  
“If it’s wrong you’re gonna kill me, if any of this is wrong it’s going to kill me, please Josh, please baby, please please don’t,”  
“Stop crying.”  
“Please! If you’ve had enough of me you can just leave! Please, please, you don’t have-“  
“I said stop!” Josh ripped the the plastic sheath off the needle and stabbed Tyler in the shoulder. 

“I know you always liked this one, hey?”  
“Mmm,”  
“And look, I even found this at the back of the cupboard - you love when I wear this!”

Josh had gone around their apartment, sifting through his clothes, collecting a pile that he had decided Tyler liked and was now offering them to him. It was strange. Tyler didn’t get dressed into proper outfits anymore, he lived in pyjamas and soft cotton tees and sweats, and if he did ever need any proper clothes he had plenty of his own, and Josh was considerably larger than him, and some of the clothes were co-owned anyway, and some had holes in them, some had bad memories attached to them. 

It was weird, but Tyler recognised his boyfriend was attempting to make amends for earlier that afternoon, and that was a sign of progress. Usually he never showed any regret. 

“Do you love them?”  
“Yeh,”  
“Do you really?” Josh smiled eagerly.   
“Yeh,”  
“Say you love them then,”   
“I love them.” He obeyed. 

“I don’t think I showed you this one, do you like this one?” He pulled a hoodie from the pile that he had definitely already shown, it was a dark red hoodie that Josh had worn the day Tyler fell down the stairs. He could remember it clearly, seared into his brain.   
“Yeh,”  
“You like it?”  
“Yeh,”  
“Well it’s yours now baby, all of this is for you,”  
“Thanks.”

“Do you want to put it on?”

He didn’t. He really didn’t. It hurt to even look at it, he could feel himself getting choked up as he looked at it, but Josh was staring at him with those eyes, those ‘I know I crossed a line earlier and I need you to help me fix it’ eyes. He knew if he resisted, those eyes could soon become those aggressive ‘why are you getting in the way of me fixing this’ eyes, and that could lead anywhere. 

Instead it was safer to please him. 

“Yeh.”

His left arm was considerably bigger than his right. It was swollen and bulging and so incredibly painful, like his skin was so taut it was close to bursting, and Tyler knew exactly why. 

Josh had tried for 15 minutes to place the IV in the vein, getting continually frustrating and lashing out at Tyler, blaming him for the tremors that prevented him from being completely still, punishing him every time he did it wrong by violently piercing Tyler with the needle somewhere else on his body. He had a dozen punctures up his arm and a dozen more on his chest. They stung and bled a little. The fact they were punishments hurt more. 

Finally Josh had declared a victory, announcing he’d struck gold and found a vein, then he’d poured his home brewed saline down the connected syringe. He’d been so proud of himself, all his frustration forgotten, and Tyler felt unable to tell him the IV had infiltrated and the concoction was seeping into his surrounding tissue, just in case Josh blamed him and took some kind of revenge. 

But as he lay there, thoughts of amputation on his mind as he stared at his ballooned arm, he swore he’d never let Josh come near him with a needle again. 

That was easier said than done though, Tyler was also resigned to the reality that he was ultimately powerless. 

“You’re gonna look so freaking cute in this, gah, I love you so much Ty, you are just the absolute cutest.” He unhooked his feeding tube and slipped the hoodie over Tyler’s head, needing to hold his skull up in one hand since he was too weak to hold it himself, then Josh grabbed Tyler’s swollen arm to begin stuffing it into a sleeve and he instantly erupted into tears. 

“Oh baby, oh cupcake, oh baby no, it’s okay, don’t cry, it’s okay sweetie, I’m right here, I’ve got you, I’m right here. Your arm’s just swollen from when you banged it during your seizure earlier, it’s okay, oh baby take a deep breath, you’re okay, it’s not that bad, you’re okay,” Josh immediately cuddled him close, nuzzling his lips to Tyler’s head as he gasped for breath, choking on the pain. 

It was as if by grabbing his wrist, Josh had squeezed the excess liquid into his hand and the pressure was strong enough that his fingers felt close to popping off. He could barely breathe. 

Within seconds of choking on tears, his hacking brought up the all too familiar wave of throw up.  
  
“Oh pudding, oh it’s okay, let’s clean you up, huh? It’s okay,” Josh was calm when Tyler vomited all over himself, including on the red hoodie. He couldn’t revel in the relief of not having to wear the garment though, he was too busy battling to maintain consciousness. 

“My poor little tiger cub, it’s alright, I got you,” Josh was doting and attentive, carefully removing the sicky hoodie and mopping up Tyler’s face with a few wipes, all as he sobbed. 

“Shhh, you’re okay, breathe through it, you’re okay. Are you gonna puke again? Should I get you an embag?” Josh asked, stroking his cheek, but Tyler couldn’t answer as he wept and wept. 

“It’s okay, calm down, I’m right here Tyler and I’m not going anywhere, you’re my precious little birdy and I’ve got you, deep breaths,”

His boyfriend’s embrace was suffocating. If he was a little birdy then Josh was his cage. 

“You really hurt yourself earlier, hey bubba?”

As much pain as he was in, the tears were for more than that. They were for fear. 

“Should I get you a bandage or a brace? Do you think that might help? Your skin here feels kinda cold,”  
“Don’t, t-touch,”  
“Pardon?”  
“P-please, d-don’t, touch, i-it,”  
“Fine! Fuck you, jackass.” 

Just like that, Josh dropped Tyler’s arm and it bumped back down onto the bed, making him scream out in pain. As he tried to catch his breath, he threw up again, but Josh had walked away, leaving him sobbing hysterically with vomit all over himself, unable to move. 

  
When Josh finally returned, it was because he had the intention of going to sleep. He’d left Tyler alone for the better part of 4 hours, still with his own vomit all over him, and in that time he was sure he’d had one seizure but it was far more likely to be a lot more than that. Josh hadn’t cared. 

Even as he got changed into his pyjamas, brushed his teeth, applied lotion to those rough hands of his and clipped his toenails, he didn’t throw a single glance Tyler’s way. There was no display of concern, no offer of help, not even a spiteful comment, and Tyler didn’t know what to do. 

“Please, I’ll, I’ll sleep on the couch, please, can you just help me clean up and move there? Please Josh?”

He didn’t know what more to say. 

“Josh? Please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for everything, I know I’ve been shit today and I’m sorry, please don’t ignore me,”

He was excellent at continuing about his routine without hesitation, waltzing casually into the bathroom to grab a hairbrush, quickly combing through his brown curls. 

“I’m desperate. Please look at me Josh. I need you.”

That caught his attention. 

“If you need me then why were you so rude to me?”  
“I was and I still am distraught with my own physical limitations and because I'm weak and stupid, I let those emotions transfer onto you. I’m sorry, it shouldn’t have happened and it won’t happen again. I’m upset with my failing body, not you, you’re the love of my life.”

It was a lie but the truth would potentially have Josh leave him forever. Just 4 hours alone had been a nightmare, too weak to reach for the wipes no matter how hard he strained, unable to clean himself up and make himself comfortable, and if he couldn’t even mop his face then the chances of him being able to handle his own meds and feeds and caths was 0. He relied on Josh and he couldn’t function without him. 

“Say it again.”  
“That I’m sorry?”  
“No. Say you need me.”  
“I need you Josh, I need you so much, I need you to look after me and to love me and to be here with me-“  
“Say need in front of every part.”  
“I need you, I need you to look after me and I need you to love me and I need you to be here with me.” Tyler made the adjustment as requested. “I need you Josh.”

Josh sighed heavily, as if forgiving Tyler was a big step he was considering, and Tyler didn’t dare say anything else to rock the boat. 

“Do you wanna apologise for anything?”  
“I do, I wanna apologise for everything, for all of it, I’m sorry.”  
“List the specifics of what you’re apologising for.”  
“I’m sorry for trying to drink water by myself without asking you, I’m sorry I wasn’t more welcoming of your genius idea to try IV hydration, I’m sorry I was shaking so much whilst you tried to place it, I’m sorry I cried so heavily when I was pricked, I’m sorry I wasn’t more enthusiastic about the beautiful hamper of clothes you generously gifted me, I’m sorry I was sick on that lovely hoodie, I’m sorry I snapped when my arm was hurting, and I’m sorry I’ve been so difficult today. It won’t happen again.”

“That all?”  
“I’m, I’m, I’m tired, my brain’s not working, I didn’t mean to miss anything, I’m sorry,”  
“You’re probably postictal still. I saw you have two tonic clonics in an hour on the monitor.” Josh hadn’t come to help. “Still not an excuse to be cheating me of apologies though.”  
“I really am sorry Josh, I’m sorry I can be an asshole and and sorry I’m not more trusting. I love you, I’m sorry,”

Josh sighed, hands on his hips, still obviously annoyed at him. 

“I just want a little something back, yanno? I don’t enjoy this Tyler, I do not enjoy being your bitch, running around doing this and that for you whilst you lay there in your comfy bed, barking at me for not being perfect all the time. I’m doing my best. I’m, I’m doing my best,” Josh mumbled sadly. “I just need you to be kinder to me, please,”   
“I’ll be kinder.”  
“All I want is for you to appreciate me. That’s why I left you with the vomit, to, to show you just how important I am in your life. You need me,”  
“Josh you’re my whole world. Without you I’d be dead, I love you so incredibly much, I love you and treasure you and value and appreciate you, and I know I’m too much for you to be dealing with but I need you to know I love you. You don’t ever have to doubt that. I need you, Josh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I pick the worst times to start posting new fics! The last 2 were done when guest readers didn’t count towards hits, this time I chose when the emails were all messed up! Sorry lol, hopefully you found this easily enough and it’s resolved now
> 
> Also, I’ve decided to try clearing through my inbox - I have a pretty tough time keeping on top of it and this year especially I’ve been too depressed/lazy to manage it, but I’m having a go. I have 600 something messages I want to reply to, so if you get a response to something you commented like months and months ago, I’m sorry! I do genuinely appreciate your feedback and I really really want to address you all, but it can be tricky to find the words and all of a sudden it seems to build up and up. Nevertheless I’m trying xx
> 
> Hope you’re all doing the best you can given the times.  
> Maisie


	4. Chapter 4

“I still think you’re beautiful,”  
“No you don’t.”  
“I’m telling my truth, maybe other people might think differently, but you’ve got me and I think you’re beautiful Tyler,”  
“I’m 31 and my hair’s, my hair’s falling out.” He wanted to cry.   
“You’re sick, once you’re better it will grow back,”  
“What if I never get better?”  
“Have hope, have faith, have trust handsome boy. God chose for this to happen to bring us together, and look at us, we’re more cemented in this relationship than ever before. Soon He’ll lift the sickness and let us continue being happy together. You’re gonna be just fine my sweet sweet boy, God just needs to ensure this illness has served its function before he lifts it, so as long as we remain devoted to each other, you’ll get better.”

“I wanna shave it.”  
“Shave all your hair off?”   
“Yeh,”  
“But sweetheart you’re so upset about these tufts coming out, don’t you think losing everything will be worse?”  
“Least this way I have control. I want to have a scrap of control over something in my life for a change,”

“What’s that supposed to mean??” Josh’s demeanour changed and Tyler’s heart sunk.   
“Nothing.”  
“No, tell me what the fuck that was supposed to mean, Tyler.”  
“I meant I don’t have any control over my health, that’s all, I didn’t mean anything else I swear,”   
“You did mean something else.”  
“I didn’t.”  
“You did! You fucking did!” Josh slammed his hand down and made Tyler jump. 

“You know I hate it when you lie to me.”  
“I’m not lying.” He whispered.   
“You’re lying right now! You’re a liar Ty! You think I’m controlling, don’t you? Say it, say you think I’m controlling!”  
“No.”  
“But you’re thinking it!”  
“Josh,”  
“All I fucking do is look after you and this is how you react?? Fuck you Tyler, fuck you.”   
“Josh please, I’m sorry.”

Josh took a deep breath, which gave Tyler a chance to suck in a little oxygen too, and then sighed. 

“Just admit it and we can move on.”  
“There’s nothing to admit, I love you, I-“  
“Say you think I’m controlling.”  
“I don’t think that though,”  
“Say it.”  
“If I do, can we stop this and go back to being us? Or, or are you gonna get mad at me?”  
“Depends on what you say.”

Tyler didn’t know how to go forwards. Josh did have a tendency to be controlling, in fact tendency was an understatement, it was a full on fundament of his personality, but Tyler knew stating that would put him at risk of offending his sensitive boyfriend, and an offended Josh was not a good thing. On the other hand disobeying his very clear order was also a risk. 

“No no no, don’t you dare Tyler, not on my watch,”  
“Huh?”  
“I could see how your brain was working, you were about the pretend to have a complex partial seizure to get out of this conversation. That’s not acceptable behaviour Tyler,”  
“I wasn’t!”  
“Are you seriously lying to me right now??”  
“I’m not!”  
“Don’t fucking lie!” 

Josh slapped him across the face with the back of his hand. 

Tyler didn’t react. He only bit into his bottom lip and tried to contain the tears to his eyes. 

“Uh oh, oopsie, let me sort that out for you baby,” Josh was suddenly his sweet self again, picking up the oxygen cannula that had been torn from his nostrils and slotting it back in place, carefully wrapping the tubing around his ears and tightening the fastening, then he ran his thumb over the peeling tape that held his feeding tube. 

“That’s better, hey sweetie pie? Doesn’t that feel better?”

Josh bought the oxygen concentrator and cannulas online about a week ago. Tyler had been having panic attacks, bad panic attacks, considerably more often that was typical for him recently, and Josh’s response was to diagnose his episodes of hyperventilation as a severe dust allergy and start him on the oxygen. He either couldn’t see or refused to see that it was panic - panic caused by him. 

“Oops, sugar, gah, you’re having another one of those random nosebleeds,” Josh seemed surprised but Tyler could already taste the blood on his top lip, trickling down his Cupid’s bow. 

It wasn’t fucking random.

As Josh stood to grab tissues, Tyler took a deep breath, breathing in that bloody oxygen, and told himself sternly that it was vital he didn’t hold onto his anger and he didn’t become bitter and he didn’t resist Josh’s sudden rush of kindness. 

He needed to soften himself, to let Josh love him however he was capable of loving him and not expect him to be perfect all the time. He needed to accept Josh had flaws, because if he didn’t accept him as he was then he’d lose him entirely, and if he lost Josh then he’d die. 

He needed to be at peace with the violence so he could access the kindness. 

“Lean forwards, you need to be leaning forwards baby boy, we don’t want you choking on this blood, do we, hey? Hey bubba?” Josh scooped Tyler up like a rag doll and tilted his head down, pinching his nose hard. 

With the NG tube and the oxygen prongs stuffed up there, it was impossible to get a seal and the blood kept flowing and Josh kept pinching harder and harder, gripping Tyler’s spine with his other hand. 

The blood splattered down onto the duvet cover, next to the great clumps of hair that had fallen out that morning. 

“What’s wrong? Are you choking? Oh god, oh, ah, okay,” Josh seemed genuinely concerned when Tyler couldn’t keep the emotion in any longer, but once he realised it was tears and not a medical emergency, he relaxed. 

“It’s okay darling, you’re okay, I know you’re scared of the nosebleeds but it’s all totally normal and not something to be getting worked up about. All the dry air from your oxygen is probably not helping, that’s why you’re having so many recently-“

He was having so many because Josh kept hitting him. 

“..but you don’t need to be getting this upset sweetheart. Take a deep breath. I know new symptoms are scary, I know this in addition to the hair situation is probably really overwhelming for you right now, but I’m here Tyler. I’m here, and I’ve got you, and I’m gonna continue to have you as the focus of my life forever. You don’t need to be scared.”

Seizures were always scary to Tyler. No matter how many he’d had, it was always scary when areas of his brain that he had no conscious access to took control of his body, and no amount of experience was making it easier to deal with.

He’d tried getting Josh to video him so he could comprehend what was happening to him, and he’d tried reading as many journals as he could tolerate, and watching other epileptics discuss their condition on YouTube, and none of that information took away from the overwhelming fear that came hand in hand with seizures. 

However after all this time, a new element had entered the game that was making it even worse. He’d started becoming even more acutely aware of how much his body hurt when he came back around, and he’d started to question whether any element of that pain had been caused by Josh. 

It had just been a random little voice in his head one day - maybe Josh beat you whilst you lay there seizing - and now he couldn’t stop obsessing over the thought. 

Josh was always there, smiling when he slowly regained consciousness, wiping his face, maybe helping him change clothes, giving him meds, stroking his aches, being a supportive and helpful and wonderful partner in the midst of a horrifying disease, and yet his kindness wasn’t enough to convince Tyler he was innocent. Josh had once intentionally trapped Tyler’s hand in a car door with such power that he shattered 4 fingers, resulting in the need for surgery, all with a gentle smile on his face. He couldn’t believe the smile. 

“I love you angel boy, you almost ready to rejoin us here on Earth? You finished with the fairies?” Josh stroked his cheek lovingly. 

Tyler didn’t feel himself yet, he still had that film separating him from reality, keeping him at a distance, but he was definitely well enough to attempt forming some kind of response. He chose not to. He chose to live in that detached post seizure haze a little longer. 

His belly really hurt, it throbbed and pounded and he honestly couldn’t tell whether it was his intestines playing their usual bullshit, or whether Josh had thumped the crap out of him whilst he was unable to defend himself. That was fucking terrifying. Even if Josh hadn’t done it, the fact Tyler’s mind so readily accepted the idea that he could was beyond alarming. 

Still, it didn’t change his reality. There was nothing he could do. 

“Tyyyyyleeeerrrr,” Josh cooed his name softly across the mattress. “Ty baby, you nearly back to me? It’s been almost an hour since the seizure stopped, I missss youuuu,”

His boyfriend was in that light fun playful clingy mood of his, which couldn’t be trusted. It was too good to be true and so would fall away in an instant. 

Managing and regulating his emotions had never been Josh’s strong suit. He hadn’t grown up in a family where emotions were allowed to be addressed or expressed or discussed, and it had formed him into an arguably dysfunctional adult - he didn’t have the insight that others had, he couldn’t understand where his mind was at and so he couldn’t do anything to intervene when he crept into extremes. 

On the whole Tyler was able to adapt himself around Josh’s intensities. Even when Josh couldn’t see it coming, Tyler could sense a bad day was on the horizon and would find ways to cope, whether that be leaving or hiding or simply embracing, but his abilities to work with and around Josh were next to none these days. Now he had no tools to utilise, he was completely at Josh’s mercy, and that was difficult. 

For the most part he was amazing. He was generous and loving and devoted and kind and patient and forgiving and supportive and attentive and loyal and tender and passionate and every other positive adjective under the sun. He was the only boy Tyler had ever loved and the only one he could ever envisage marrying. 

The hiccup was the other part of Josh. The part that came out when he got tired or overworked or jealous or bored. The part that scared him. 

“You are the cutest little button,” Josh chuckled, pouring his hands all over Tyler lovingly and possessively. “It’s time for you to wake up,” 

“What should we do? I wanna do something,”  
“Um,” there wasn’t much Tyler could do anymore.   
“Should we watch a movie? They just added a bunch to Netflix,”  
“You can babe, I’ll, I’ll sleep,”   
“Why don’t you wanna watch a movie with me?”  
“Makes me sick, the, the screen, and the brightness, and everything, I’m, I just, I need to rest Josh, I feel awful,”  
“So let me distract you! Come on Ty, don’t shut me out, let’s do something fun together, you and me,”

Even the prospect of watching something fast paced and loud made Tyler want to cry. He needed silence and stillness and the chance to give his body a break from the bombardments. 

“We never do anything fun anymore, it’s not fair Ty, please,”  
“We can watch a movie, I’ll keep my eyes closed, it’s fine,”  
“Then you’re not watching! Come on! Why won’t you do something with me?”  
“I can’t,”  
“You can if you put your mind to it,”  
“I can’t Josh, sorry, I’m, I'm sorry.”   
“Gah,” he sighed heavily. “You get it, don’t you? Get that you’re obsessed with your sickness and I’m trying to give you an outlet, a life, and every time you turn me down and push me away, it makes it harder and harder for me to love you.”

Tyler felt like he had a slab of granite on his chest, forbidding him to breathe properly, and his head was filled with a sharp screaming tone, and all he wanted was to sleep. But with Josh’s comment, suddenly he got scared that Josh would leave if he dared to close his eyes. 

“I love you,”  
“You don’t act like it,”  
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I love you Josh, I love you so much,” he tried to reach out to his boyfriend, but he had a home-placed IV in his arm and it got tangled with the tubes of his oxygen and his feeding tube and his pulseox cable and his blood pressure cuff, and he was too weak to pull through it. 

“God Ty, every time! When are you gonna learn? You gotta stay still,” Josh forced his arm back down and untwisted the lot. 

“I love you,”  
“Yeh yeh,”  
“I love you! I do! I love you!”  
“Then why won’t you watch a movie with me?”  
“I will.”  
“No you won’t, you’ll promise you will and then you’ll fall asleep or have a seizure or something, that’s what you always do.”  
“I’ll try my best,”  
“Maybe that’s not good enough Ty.”

He knew his best wasn’t good enough, he knew he wasn’t good enough for anybody even when he was fully functioning, so it came as no surprise that as a bed bound needy leech he wasn’t good enough either. It struck a nerve. 

“I never signed up for this. When you fell down the stairs, I figured I’d maybe have to help you wash your hair since your hand was in a cast, maybe deal with the odd bout of nausea with your concussion, but I never agreed to give up my entire life for you. Before this I had a job, I had friends, I, I had a life, and now what do I have? Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like I have a boyfriend anymore, you’re more like a patient. I try and build up a bond with you again, to make this mean more to me than a duty bound dependency, and you blow me off time and time again. Sure, maybe you feel like having a nap, but you’ve been sleeping all week and all I’m asking is that we try watching a film together in a last ditch attempt to save this relationship.”

“Are you gonna leave me?” Tyler could barely find the strength to give the fear any volume.   
“If I leave then you’ll die pretty quick.”  
“Are you gonna leave me?”  
“Depends. Are you gonna watch a movie with me?”  
“Yes.”  
“Then I guess we’ll see.”

  
“Do you remember that night? Oh god Ty, we had the best time, you got so drunk that you climbed up on the bar and the bouncer kicked you out and we couldn’t find you for ages, turned out you snuck back in wearing that girl’s wig, you remember?” 

Josh was in a significantly better mood after they’d watched the entirety of a movie that Tyler couldn’t remember. With the threat looming over him, he’d tried his absolute hardest to devote his full attention to the laptop, so that Josh would believe he was devoted to saving their relationship, however within 10 minutes he’d had a seizure, and the next 2 hours had been a blur. 

Josh didn’t seem that mad though; he’d picked Tyler up and put him in his lap, holding him like a baby, with his medical devices displayed in front of them on the bed; the oxygen concentrator, the blood pressure machine, the pulseox monitor, the catheter draining bag, the glucose monitoring kit, then the feeding pump and IV fluids up on the pole beside them, all helping to keep him alive. Of course the biggest help of all was Josh himself, and Tyler felt relaxed cuddled up in his arms. 

Too relaxed. 

He knew the feeling by now, when Josh had slipped him one too many epilepsy meds. The strong diazepam prescription was for when his seizures weren’t breaking and he needed chemical intervention for stopping them, but either he’d had an incredibly horrific seizure needing a huge dose, or Josh had taken certain liberties, because he was drugged beyond belief. Tyler could barely hear himself think through the veil of sedation. 

“Oh look, that was from Jake’s 25th, oh we had such a good night, god look at you, I always loved you in that shirt,”

Josh had the photo album out, he was narrating the images, however Tyler couldn’t see. His eyes were open but he was seeing nothing but haze and a dancing kaleidoscopic light show. Every time he tried to focus his vision, he felt like he was going to vomit, but he was too sedated to move, meaning any puke that did come up his throat was going to stay there and he’d choke on it.

“This is so nice Ty, thanks for spending the evening doing this with me, I love it when you’re calmer like this,” Josh might have been stroking his face, Tyler couldn’t tell, his skin was numb. 

“Plus look, aren’t your tremors so much better when you finally let yourself relax, hey? You’re barely shaking Ty, this is amazing, you’re amazing, you’re doing so well,”

Even though Tyler was terrified, even though he felt trapped and claustrophobic within his own body, even though it was probably destroying his liver, he had to realise the potential benefits of Josh overdosing him. At least this way the chances of him having a seizure were reduced, and his tremors were apparently better, and most importantly Josh was being loving and attentive. There was none of the violence or the frustration or the threats of recent times, instead his boyfriend was holding him and talking to him and loving him, and maybe that was better than when Tyler could speak and they’d fight and Josh might potentially leave him. Maybe this was the only option to keep him around and keep Tyler alive. 

“Oopsy daisy, silly Ty, silly billy dribbling all over the place, don’t worry darl, Joshie’s got it,” he mopped his face for him, except Tyler hadn’t even realised he was dribbling, and couldn’t feel the cloth wiping it away. 

He couldn’t feel anything. 

He tried biting his tongue, just to gauge whether it was possible for him to feel pain at all, and he couldn’t find the muscle in his mouth. For all he knew, he could have bitten it clean off. 

Refusing to let himself panic, Tyler kept hunting for silver linings, rooting deep like a truffle pig. The lack of pain signals meant if Josh had a lapse, if he slipped up and lost control, Tyler wouldn’t be able to tell, and that was a good thing. It was best he didn’t know when Josh was hurting him. It was best he turned a blind eye to that, and with the drugs coursing through his veins, he was both blind and numb to anything Josh threw at him. 

Maybe life sedated was the way forwards. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Black lives matter 
> 
> I know fanfic chapter notes aren’t your first thought when it comes to activism, but I can’t say nothing, silence is supporting oppression and outright murder, so of course I’m speaking out. Black lives matter and the fact we still have to fucking argue why is outrageously disgusting, as a white English person I’m in a position of privilege and it’s my responsibility to use it to the best of my ability and continually learn how to get better at that.
> 
> I’m signing every petition I see, I’ve donated to the Minnesota freedom fund to support bail of protestors, and I’m trying to spread the word to others. If there’s more I can do, tell me. I want to learn but I also appreciate it’s not the responsibility of the oppressed to be educating me, so I’ll be teaching myself as best I can.
> 
> I’m so angry. I thought about what small difference I could make and considered writing a fluffy soft fanfic for people who need an escape from how scary the world is, but I’m just so fucking angry that I can’t put myself in the headspace to be writing that right now, I’m sorry. 
> 
> So yeh, there’s obviously a lot more to be said but I’ll leave it there for now
> 
> Stay safe x


	5. Chapter 5

“He looks like shit,”  
“Don’t, don’t say that in front of him, sometimes he can hear stuff,”  
“So?”  
“So it might upset him,”  
“So?”  
“Eh, good point, I dunno,” Josh caved to Jordan. 

Jordan was not a nice person. He brought them groceries and medication, but that didn’t make him a nice person. In the past he’d been needlessly cruel to Tyler, outwardly homophobic and malicious, siding with Josh even when the violence had put him in hospital over and over again. 

Tyler didn’t blame him though, just like he didn’t blame Josh. They were products of their parents’ creation, and fault lay at the mother and father who taught the boys how to act. It wasn’t fair to hold that against them. 

“You keep him like this 24/7 now?”  
“Come talk at the door, he won’t be able to hear us there,” Josh instructed his brother to back away slightly. “And no, not all the time, I’m, um, that doctor who gave me the diazepam prescription got arrested,”  
“For what?”  
“For running a pill mill dipshit, and he lost his licence so even if he gets off it’s still a bust, and the new one is like 5 times the price so I can’t really afford to keep him completely under all the time, so I do a big dose in the morning and then a medium one at 2ish and that keeps him pretty subdued. It’s not the same as it was, but in the evenings when he does get more aware, he usually gets tired from seizures anyway,”  
“Which you trigger?”   
“No! No he’s my baby, I’d never do that to him.”   
“No course not, but lemme guess, it just so happens to coincide with when you hook up the next bottle of feed, extra strength?”

Josh didn’t reply. 

“I don’t get it, if you can put him on ice like this, why bother with the rest?”  
“Whaddya mean?”  
“Well why bother filling all the other prescriptions? Yanno, the beta blockers and all that bullshit,”  
“Because he’s sick Jordan, he needs his medication,”   
“I got an easy solution for ya, stop poi-“  
“Shut the fuck up, god you really are an empty airhead, aren’t you? He’s sick, he needs his medication, I’m giving it to him, so he needs me. That’s not a hard concept to understand.” 

“All I’ll say is if you end up killing him, don’t call me to come handle it, because I’m having nothing to do with it.”  
“You’re on the cameras in the pharmacy picking up the pills, you’ve got everything to do with this in the eyes of the police, Jordan. Plus we both know what your record looks like, a jury would lap up the opportunity to lock you up and throw away the key - it would be in your best interest to help me so no cops have to get involved.”  
“Well that’s even more motivation for you not to overdo it then, cos swear down, you drag me in, I will kill you.”  
“You’re funny,” Josh laughed, but it was strained. 

“He’s my baby boy, he’s my man, nothing bad’s going to happen to him.”  
“I think he would say otherwise, if he could speak.” 

Josh chuckled at that, which cut deep. 

“He loves me,”  
“Yeah, I think he does,”  
“No question about it, he definitely loves me,”  
“If he didn’t then he would have left a loooong time ago Joshie boy, he’s head over heels for you, I dunno why else he would put up with your shit,”  
“What shit? I’m a great boyfriend,”  
“I reckon dude on dude relationships must be different cos trust me, if I tried to pull a stunt like this on my girl, she’d leave my ass. Like I’m serious, she doesn’t even trust me to get her her birth control in the morning so there’s no way she’d be okay with me doing aallll of that,”  
“He doesn’t have a choice. If he doesn’t let me do it, he’ll die.”  
“You’d off him?”   
“No, gah Jordan, you’re so morbid, I mean he’d die naturally. At this point he’s too weak to eat or drink, so, yanno, ball’s in my court.” 

“Do you enjoy it still?” The younger brother asked. “In the beginning, I could kinda see the appeal. He was so grateful and so in awe of how much you were looking after him, like you practically ascended to god tier in his eyes and I could totally understand that being fun for you, but I dunno man, now he can’t even stay awake, let alone love you-“  
“Don’t fucking say that!!” Josh erupted furiously.   
“Say what?”   
“He loves me! HE FUCKING LOVES ME!”  
“Get off me. Josh. Josh!”

Tyler couldn’t see anything, nothing at all, but he could hear the familiar scrapes and bangs of his boyfriend pinning someone against the wall, only this time it wasn’t him.

There was more kerfuffle, no doubt Jordan standing up for himself, and Tyler could hear the heavy breathing of the butting brothers. 

“You’re fucking mental.”   
“Don’t say that kinda shit and we’re fine, got it?”

“All I’m saying is maybe think about dialling the sedation back one or two days a week, least that way he can show you how much he loves you. What can he do like this? I mean Jesus J, his skin is like, it’s practically grey, are you sure he can even breathe?”  
“It’s shallower but he’s got the oxygen supply so he can survive okay, his sats are pretty low but I don’t thing they need to be way up all the time so it’s fine.”   
“You’re the expert but I dunno, he hardly looks healthy,”  
“He’s not healthy, he’s sick, he’s really sick Jord, that’s the whole point.”

“Do his family not notice he’s missing?”  
“Oh god his mom is freaking obsessive, she keeps calling like 2, 3 times every single month, it’s like, hello? Take the hint?”   
“What do you tell her?”  
“Well Ty told her about his fall and his concussion way back when it happened, and then they were still talking when he started having his first few seizures, but I managed to intercept from that point on, so as far as she knows, he’s got a head injury. Every time we speak I tell her he’s having a migraine or he’s feeling really dizzy or sensitive or whatever, and that usually does the trick. She’s getting crazier though, demanding I put him on the line, and I keep telling her over and over that he needs to rest and phones make his head hurt and she’s just so damn insistent, asking like 3 times to speak to him in one call. I dunno, she’s crazy. Plus it’s his birthday in a couple of days-“

It was his birthday soon? Tyler didn’t know the date but he’d presumed it was late September, maybe early October at a push, but they definitely hadn’t had Halloween or Thanksgiving yet, so how the heck was it nearly December?

How long had Josh kept him unconscious? 

“..and she’s obsessed with this idea of sending him some dumb fucking care package and there’s only so many times I can tell her to stop asking for my fucking address. She’s a stalker, she’s an actual stalker.”  
“Just stop answering her calls, or better still, change your number,”  
“It’s Tyler’s phone, but yeah, maybe I will change his number, that’s a good idea,”  
“See, I’m not a complete airhead.”  
“Maybe there’s one or two brain cells in there, I’m not convinced.”  
“Want me to pick up a new simcard when I bring your next groceries?”  
“Nah, not like he needs it. I’ll just smash his current one so she can’t call,”

  
“That’s it baby, that’s it, oh Ty you’re doing so good!”

He hated getting his teeth brushed, he hated everything about it, he hated that Josh had to do it for him, he hated how rough he was, he hated the taste of blood as his weak gums ripped, he hated his mouth filling up with toothpaste and spit until he started choking on it, he hated Josh sticking his big rough finger in there to scoop the goop out, he hated being tipped forwards and shaken so that it all drained out, he hated everything. 

He’d rather this teeth were left to rot like the rest of his body than have to endure this, over and over again. 

“Almost done baby boy,” Josh’s thumb pinched his top lip, peeling it back out of the way so he had space to ram the toothbrush in. Tyler tried to open his mouth, comply to minimise the harm, but his jaw was too stiff for him to control. That or he was too weak. 

“There we go! All done, hey? Now time to spit, you ready?” His boyfriend adjusted his grip, holding Tyler by the front of his neck, then all of a sudden he was being forced forwards, dangling over with strands of bloody minty saliva dribbling down into the bowl Josh had prepared. The change in posture made Tyler feel light headed, and even the familiar sensation of Josh’s hand on his throat set his brain off panicking, unable to shake off old memories. 

“Let’s clean you up a little bit, huh bubba?” Josh grabbed a piece of folded gauze and shoved it in Tyler’s mouth, not caring as it made him gag, then swashed it around a bit to mop up any toothpaste residue before getting a wipe and harshly cleaning his face. 

“You feel nice and refreshed now angel? All ready for beddy?”

Tyler lived in bed. He hadn’t left their bed in what he thoughts was a few weeks but was apparently closer to months, not even to bathe, so to suggest he had any option but to remain in his prison cell felt cruel. 

“I’m gonna tell you a bedtime story tonight, I know you’ve been a really sleepy boy recently and you haven’t been needing my stories to help you drift off, but it might be nice, hey? Would that be nice?” Josh was stroking his thin brittle hair back. “And tomorrow is going to be a really exciting day for us sweet boy. Uncle Jordy and I were chatting earlier, and I think tomorrow might be a wide awake day for TyTy, how does that sound? I’m going to give you a special medicine that gives you energy so that you can fight off how tired you’ve been; it’s gonna be a tester, if you can stay nice and calm on the wide awake medicine then maybe I’ll give it to you more often, but if you’re bad then I think it would be better for everybody if you stayed asleep a while longer. D’you understand my love? Tomorrow you’ll be able to wake up, however if you want to wake up more often then you need to behave,”

Tyler understood. He understood perfectly. 

“It’s funny actually. That’s kind of what your bedtime story is about.”

Josh used to tell Tyler stories all the time, stories with eerily similar plots to their lives and one dimensional characters. 

“Once upon a time, there was a little mouse named Muffin, and Muffin lived in the walls of the king’s castle. The king had the biggest castle in all the lands, so he didn’t mind Muffin taking up a little space until one day, he was walking through one of his 100 living rooms and saw that Muffin had chewed through the cables of one of his 1000 TVs. The king’s advisors all told him to call in pest control and set a 100,000 traps to kill little Muffin and have him out of his life forever, but the king said no. Instead the king sat outside one of the holes Muffin had made in his wall, he sat there all day and all night, patient as a saint, waiting for the moment little Muffin poked his head out.”

“Muffin was scared, Muffin knew he was a very naughty mouse, but the king was gentle with him and managed to coax him out. He told little Muffin that if he was hungry then he’d be given food, and if he was bored then he’d be provided with entertainment, but only on the contingency that Muffin never chewed another of the king’s possessions ever again. Muffin agreed and so the king graciously had a whole suite made up for Muffin, a home a thousand times better than the walls, and he settled in quickly. All his wildest dreams were met! He got to gorge himself on cheese and sleep in the softest bed in the world, all because the king let him.”

“Now Muffin loved living in the king’s suite for a long time, he was happy for a long time, he loved the cheese the king gave him, he loved the rooms he gave him, he loved the life he gave him. He was content for a really long time, but then Muffin the mouse started to forget who had given him all those blessings, he forgot how fortunate he was, he forgot how merciful the king had been and he started demanding more. He started telling the king to bring him more cheese or else he’d chew the castle beyond repair, and for a while the king obliged, but Muffin kept pushing and pushing, expecting more and more from the king, until one day, enough!” Josh crashed his hand against the bedside table. “The king was through with Muffin’s crap, so he called the exterminator and the next day Muffin was dead in bag, dumped in the trash and forgotten about.”

Tyler didn’t like Josh’s bedtime stories. 

“You’re not gonna be Muffin tomorrow, are you? You’re gonna respect the king who gave you freedom from the confines of the walls,” 

  
Tyler woke up before Josh. 

Tyler hadn’t been awake, properly awake, in what he had learnt was a very long time. Josh’s doses must have been pretty standard throughout the period he’d been sedating him because Tyler had been adapting to it, acclimatising to it, building a tolerance to it. That didn’t mean he was untouched by the overdoses, absolutely not, he’d still been mostly paralysed by them, largely blinded by them, heavily subdued by them, but his awareness had been building for the past few weeks to the point where he could hear his surroundings sometimes. 

However that morning was the first morning he’d been able to see anything clearly in a long time. 

He could see the ceiling above him, he could see the light creeping through the curtains, he could see the pile of clothes overflowing the laundry basket. He could see the new bedspread Josh had bought, he could see the new holes in the walls, he could see the colour his skin had turned. Jordan was right, he was grey. 

He could see it all so clearly now. 

He had to get out. It might be his last chance. He had to get out. 

The door was only a few metres away and with Josh sleeping, it would be entirely possible for him to simply walk away, if only he had the strength to move. Walking was impossible, he hadn’t walked in at least a year, so he looked around for his wheelchair, knowing it might be his only hope. 

It was nowhere to be seen. 

Even straining his neck to look in the far corner where it was sometimes stowed was difficult, the muscles atrophied and weak, and Tyler knew the most important thing was to conserve his energy. If he was going to make some kind of escape attempt, it was vital he gave himself the best shot at making it the whole way, because if Josh caught him then he’d likely never see his family again. He honestly didn’t know whether Josh would kill him or keep him as his pet a little longer, but Tyler was reaching the point where-

“Morning Ty,” Josh’s voice stopped his heart. “Oh babe you have no idea how good it is to see those eyes,”

He instantly felt guilty and therefore petrified, like his boyfriend would be able to read his treacherous thoughts, and his chosen response was terrified silence. 

“Hello my handsome love,” he scooted closer and kissed Tyler’s cheek with his shitty morning breath. “How does it feel to be awake?”

Tyler still had a lump in his throat, stopping him from even being able to pull in breath. Josh knew, Josh always knew, Josh must know what he’d dared to think, Josh knew and Josh was gonna catch him out and Josh was gonna punish him and Josh-

“Hey hey darling, what’s all this about? Baby?” 

He seemed genuinely concerned by the panic attack starting. 

“Tyler, can your hear me?”

Scared to lie, he managed a small nod as he gasped for air. 

“Sweetheart, sweet sweet boy, don’t use all the energy I gave you on getting anxious. Calm down. Caaaalm, you’re okay, I’m right here, deep breaths,”

He hasn’t anticipated just how terrifying Josh’s gaze was to him after so many days of blindness. 

“I took you off some of the calming meds to help you wake up, that’s why you’re feeling stressed, but darling I promise there’s no reason to be afraid. I’m right here, I’m right here,” Josh put his dry calloused hand on Tyler’s cheek, pressing on the feeding tube and oxygen, pressing him against the pillow.

“What can I do to help? I want to help you Ty,”  
“A-a-ath-athh,”  
“Your cath? Is something wrong with your catheter?”  
“B-b-b,”  
“You want a bath?”  
“Ye-yeah,”  
“Umm, okay, yeah, that might be nice, hey? You’re gonna need to calm your breathing down a lot before I feel safe with putting you in water. But you’re right sweetness, a warm bath for the first time in a little while might help you relax, and hopefully get some of your aches and pains loosened up, hey? You’re so smart Ty, so smart, and so handsome. I love you so much,”  
“I l-l-love y-y-you,” he said what he knew Josh needed to hear. 

With a quick peck on the forehead, Josh climbed out of their shared bed and headed to start running the bath, which also started the clock for Tyler. He only had a few seconds before he’d come back. 

Even with his hands numb and tremor-ridden, he forced himself to reach over to the bedside cabinet, pulling open the top drawer as fast but as quietly as he could, hearing the water starting to run in the other room. 

Heart in his mouth, Tyler cried as he rummaged for his phone, whimpering with relief when it wasn’t smashed. He could barely see through the petrified tears, but managed to unlock it using Josh’s birthday. He rushed to open maps and took a screenshot of his current location, then with only a few fumbling mishaps, managed to attach the image to a message to his mom with one word. 

Help.

  
“..and then maybe you and I can try-“

Josh was interrupted by a knock on the door, but he chose to ignore it, focussing his attention and love on Tyler as he held him in his arms, stroking his face sweetly and whispering gentle words. Tyler’s throat closed up in fear. 

“We could try moving away some place? We’d find an even more accessible apartment for when you’re stronger and can use your wheelchair, and-“

“MR DUN?? POLICE! OPEN UP!”

Tyler tried to twist, flinching from the sound, but Josh pulled his attention back. He didn’t seem surprised or scared or confused or intrigued. He seemed unnervingly calm. 

“Ignore them Ty, and we can try seeing more of the world than little old Ohio. How do you feel about moving somewhere warm? It’ll be good for your lungs-“

“JOSHUA DUN! THIS IS THE POLICE! WE HAVE A WARRANT TO SEARCH THE PROPERTY!”

“They’re bluffing sweet boy, don’t pay them any attention, just keep looking at me. We could try California, hey? I know you’ve always-“

“JOSH, WE HAVE MEDICS FOR TYLER! YOU NEED TO LET US IN!”

“..wanted to go to LA? How about we move to LA? Hey?”

“JOSH, FINAL WARNING! COMPLY, LET US HELP TYLER, IT WILL HELP YOUR CASE WHEN THIS COMES TO TRIAL!” 

“Trial? What? What are they going to do?”   
“Tyler, I said listen to me,” Josh grabbed him by the chin, pinching firmly to force him to look at him. “I think you’ll be so happy in LA, we could get you a seat in the sun, and little shade for when you start going pink, hey? Wouldn’t that be nice? Getting some vitamin D? And we co-“

“JOSH, TYLER, STAY BACK FROM THE DOOR,”

“J-Josh,”  
“It’s okay my love, it’s all gonna be okay, just keep your mind on me-“

There was the huge crashing sound of them slamming a battering ram against their door, meeting the resistance of the dozen locks Josh had put on. 

“I’m here baby, I’ve got you, you’re safe and I promise I’m never gonna let anybody hurt you, hey? Cos you’re my man, Ty, you’re my everything and I’m always going to keep you close.”

With the second massive thump came a crash of splintering, and the door hadn’t even hit the ground before a commotion of people came sprinting into their home, too many for Tyler’s tired eyes to keep up with. 

“Joshua Dun-“  
“You’re violating our 4th amendment rights, leave,” Josh stated calmly, still stroking Tyler’s cheek and smiling lovingly at him, seemingly unfazed by the invasion.   
“We’ve got probable cause and a search warrant Josh, the only rights being violated here are Tyler’s. Release him to the paramedics and we-“  
“No, he’s my angel, he’s staying right here,” he was still staring at Tyler intensely, still stroking his face, still smiling, even with at least half a dozen police officers surrounding their bed. 

Tyler had never been so overwhelmed in all his life. 

He didn’t know what was going to happen and he didn’t know what he wanted to happen, and he instantly regretted making any of this happen. 

They were going to take Josh away, they were going to separate them, they were going to punish Josh and they were going to leave Tyler in the dust, and even though a small part of him was terrorised by the idea of Josh figuring out he’d alerted his mom to call the police and beating the living shit out of him, he was actually more afraid of the police hurting either of them in anyway. Josh was going to put up a fight, that was for sure, and Tyler was scared of what that meant to the men with guns. 

“See! You’re upsetting him! Go away, it’s his bedtime!”  
“Josh, we need to get Tyler seen by the medics,” the lead police officer dominating negotiations said calmly after Tyler burst into tears.   
“He’s severely disabled, he’s, he’s got a rare disease that only I know how to handle, he can’t be away from me or he’ll die,”  
“Josh, can you see Tim and Sarah over there? Our medics?” The officer was trying to distract Josh but nothing broke his stare. He kept his eyes fixed on Tyler. “They’re not going to hurt him, they’re going to help him, which I know is what you want.”  
“You don’t know what I want,”  
“I know you care about Tyler, and you want the best for him, right?”  
“Yeh, but I’m the best thing for him! Just leave us be!”

“There’s been an allegation made-“  
“By that stupid fucking asshole of a doctor??”  
“I can’t comment on where the concern has come from at this time, but we need to do our duty and investigate the allegation Josh, so I need you to let our medics attend to Tyler, and we’ll pop downtown and have a little chat,”  
“You broke down our fucking door and made my cupcake hysterical, just for a little chat? No. No. Absolutely not, no! I know exactly what happens the moment I let go of him!”  
“What do you think’s going to happen Josh?”  
“You’re going to take him away from me! You’re going to take him away!” 

Tyler didn’t want to be taken away.

“N-n-no,”  
“I won’t let them sweet boy, I won’t let them, it’s okay, deep breaths, I won’t let them,”  
“Josh, we just need to examine him,”  
“He doesn’t want you to, didn’t you hear him?? He doesn’t want you here!”  
“J-J-Josh,”   
“Think of LA and what our future holds, hey? Your chair in the sun?” Josh blocked them out, talking only to Tyler. “You and me Ty, it’ll always be you and me,”

“Tyler, we’re going to take you to a hospital to get you treatment as soon as we can, and we’re gonna reunite you with your parents. They’re really worried about you,”  
“I, I, I d-d-don’t w-w-wa-want to g-go! I w-wa-want t-to b-be with J-Josh! I t-ta-take i-it b-back! I-I w-wanna b-be with h-him!”  
“Wait, you want to take what back?” Josh’s voice dropped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a little late, I got swept up in everything happening lately and this slipped through the net
> 
> Happy pride month! This year more than any other I’m remembering to take the spirit of pride - fighting for the human rights of LGBT people - and I’m infusing that into my support of the black lives matter movement. We’re 2 groups who have been denied humanity and respect for aspects beyond our control; whilst I have the privilege to pass as straight cis in threatening environments, black people can’t ‘switch off’ the colour of their skin, and I cannot possibly begin to truly understand their position, however I’m taking a stand alongside them.
> 
> Zara Barrie wrote a wonderful piece for GoMag entitled Let’s Honor Pride Month By Supporting Black Lives Matter if you’re keen to learn more about how we can support the current revolution. 
> 
> As always, let me know what I can be doing better,  
> Keep safe  
> Maisie


	6. Chapter 6

Tyler was used to waking up disoriented and confused. 

Once upon a time it had been distressing for him, struggling to place himself first thing in the morning, or whatever moment in the day he managed to emerge from the depths of sleep. After such a long time battling his deteriorating health though, he’d grown to accept what couldn’t be changed and had done all he could to embrace the confusion. There were far worse aspects to the situation than not recognising locations immediately. 

It was only once he heard the loud beep of a machine that his mouth went dry. He hated that fucking sound. That sound usually meant his feed had finished, which would prompt Josh to swap the empty bottle out for a full one, which would usually trigger a cascade of symptoms as his body scrambled to keep up with the switch. 

Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, his mind and body had learnt what the sound cued - for him? Pain. 

“Tyler? What’s wrong? Chris get a nurse, get a nurse,”

He knew that voice. He knew that name.

“M-Mom?”  
“Oh my god Ty, oh, oh darling you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice,” she popped into his limited field of vision, “deep breaths darling, relax, you’re safe now,”  
“Where a-am I?”  
“We’re in the hospital honey,”  
“Mom, wh-where’s Josh?”   
“He’s not here, don’t worry, he’s not here,”  
“Where i-is he?”  
“I’m not sure exactly sweetheart, but the police have him,”  
“No! No! No no no no no,”  
“Tyler listen to me, Tyler, Ty,”  
“He’s g-gonna be so m-mad! No!”  
“Calm down, you’re never gonna see him again-“  
“NO! No no no, no, no! No!”  
“Ty, slow down,”  
“No no no no,”

Flustered and overwhelmed, the panic kept building and building in his chest, smothering him from the inside. Everything was falling apart and the debris was raining down on him, thick and fast, blocking out the sun. 

He couldn’t breathe. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, none of it was supposed to be like this, he wasn’t supposed to be in a hospital, he was supposed to be with Josh - the hospitals couldn’t look after him, they couldn’t help him, only Josh knew how to look after him and to help him, and only Josh could care for him how he wanted to be cared for. 

Hospital was the enemy. Mainstream medicine was the enemy. The doctors and nurses who did nothing but deny Tyler treatment were the enemy, and now he was trapped in their territory without his only advocate there to defend and protect him. 

With frantic but strong actions, he ripped the tape of his NG tube off his face, knowing it was different to the one Josh placed because the adhesive was so much harsher and stung so much worse when it tore from his skin, then without hesitation he yanked the long tube out of his nose, pulling and pulling till it was fully free, only gagging a little as he hyperventilated. 

“Oh my God Tyler no! No! Stop it! NURSE! Stop it Tyler!”

He had to get it out, all of it, he had to get all of their devices out.

The oxygen cannula was easily tossed aside, then, next, the IV buried in his hand. It too was different from the one Josh used to help him, so Tyler grabbed the tubing and unconnected it, not caring as the malicious liquid dribbled out, instead latching onto the actual cannula implanted in his flesh and ripping that out too. 

Blood leaked out the site, staining his hand, but it was already forgotten as his mind raced onto the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. 

The panic was pumping him full of adrenaline, a dangerous chemical that tricked him into believing he had strength. Desperate to find his way back to the comfort and security of Josh, Tyler pulled his blanket back and tried to swing his feet to the ground, not thinking, and in spite of how badly he wanted to run, his legs didn’t possess any power at all and collapsed underneath him. 

When his dad and the nurse came back into his room, he was crying on the floor with his mom crying next to him.

  
“You feeling a bit better now son? Calmer?”  
“Uh huh,”  
“Whatever that was, the panic attack flashback thing, we’re gonna get you proper help for it, alright? Your mom and I have spoken about it and we’ll pay for as much therapy as you need, years and years worth if that’s what it takes, so, um, I imagine you’re having a lot of uncertain thoughts right now about the future, but know that Mom and I are gonna support you and get you all the help you may need,”  
“Thanks Dad,”

Tyler hadn’t spoken to his father in years. Partly because Josh blocked off all contact with the outside world, but also because they’d never had the best relationship in the past either. He hadn’t been an easy man to grow up around, he’d always been withdrawn and stoic, keeping his thoughts to himself and consequently leaving Tyler to fill in the gaps with his imagination. 

He’d always assumed his father resented him, whether it be for his sexuality or the millions of other flaws in his character, so having him sat at his hospital bed saying reassuring words was a big change. 

There was a lot of that change in the air. 

“Here you go,”  
“Thanks love,” Dad took the coffee off Mom as she returned, smiling when she saw Tyler was awake and calm again. 

After the episode, he’d been given medications to settle him and he’d fallen asleep. They thankfully hadn’t placed any of the tubes or lines back in yet, but Tyler knew it would only be so long before he was subjected to that unique torture. For now though, he was allowing the sedatives to soothe him, relishing in having a correct prescription rather than Josh’s overly enthusiastic attempt at dosing him. 

“Hey sweetheart, how are you feeling?”  
“Better,”  
“Better? That’s good angel, that’s good,”  
“Mom,”  
“Yeah?”  
“What’s the, um, the date?”  
“Well you’ve been here 3 days and-“  
“3 days? H-how?”  
“You slept solidly through till this morning. The doctors said your body was exhausted so they didn’t seem that concerned with how much rest you’ve needed to get to this point, but that makes-“  
“Wait, what do you think the date is Ty?” Dad interrupted her.   
“I, I, I don’t know, I heard Josh say to Jordan it was nearly my birthday, but I don’t, um, I don’t really remember summer ending,”  
“It’s November 27th darling,” Mom sighed heavily. “Did he not let you go outside at all?”   
“I, I couldn’t, I haven’t been well enough in months,”

“Darling, this was the other thing we needed to talk to you about. We know you’ve been feeling like crap for a long time, and we know you fell down the stairs and you sustained a head injury, but-“  
“Kel, shouldn’t we leave this to a doctor to tell him?”  
“What? Why? No, no it’s better coming from family,”  
“Did the doctors tell you that?”  
“No, but it’s common sense, right? He trusts us, he’ll believe us, he-“  
“What if he has another episode like earlier?”  
“We can calm him down,”  
“You don’t know that we can, you couldn’t last time, we don’t know how to handle Stockholm syndrome or PTSD or whatever this is, we-“  
“Chris he needs to know,”  
“Agreed, but we don’t need to be the ones to tell him,”  
“We’re his parents!”  
“Who he hasn’t spoken to in almost 2 years - maybe an informed authority figure, like a doctor, is a safer bet,”  
“Or maybe-“  
“Just tell me.” Tyler whispered, knowing what was coming and wanting to get the conversation over and done with as soon as possible. 

His parents glared at each other, before finally his father submitted and gestured for his question to be answered. 

“Sweetie, the doctors took some blood samples to do some tests, and when the technicians looked, they found some unusual chemicals in your system. They haven’t been able to identify exactly where they’ve come from, they’ve actually sent some samples to another specialist lab for confirmation, but they think they’ve found some compounds commonly found in rat poison.”

She paused to give him a moment to react, but he didn’t. 

“They think Josh was poisoning you sweetheart, and that’s where the majority of your symptoms have come from. I know that’s horrifying, it’s disgusting, it’s fucking disgusting, but we need to look for the silver linings in a position like this - it means that now you’re away from him, you stand a good chance of making a substantial recovery very quickly, and it means we have evidence for a big charge to be placed on Josh that is gonna push his jail time up massively compared to a standard domestic violence charge that can be talked down and down to a tiny sentence, but the doctors have all already agreed to take the stand and present evidence of the horrible things he’s done to you. So even though this is overwhelmingly awful, it’s gonna be okay because you’re able to get better and we’re gonna make sure Josh never sees the light of day again. It’s gonna be okay, I promise,”

“It wasn’t rat poison-“  
“Honey,”  
“It wasn’t rat poison, it was Talstar P,”  
“You knew,” Mom’s hand floated up to cover her open mouth.   
“Yeh, I knew.”

Tyler felt like he ought to be upset, crying, panicking maybe, but he wasn’t. It wasn’t relief he was feeling either, it was something different, something vulnerable, something shameful. 

“Why didn’t you stop him sooner Ty? Why didn’t you ask us for help sooner?” Dad asked.   
“I, I don’t know, I, it, um, it’s complicated,”  
“Can you explain it to me? Or at least try? Because if someone started feeding me insecticide, I wouldn’t sit back and let them,”  
“Chris!”  
“S’fine, um, yeh, I don’t, I’m not, I don’t know Dad, I’m not you,” Tyler couldn’t look at him, feeling his frustration, feeling his blame. 

Suddenly he wasn’t a victim in his dad’s eyes because he hadn’t fought back hard enough. 

“The Talstar was different, I, I liked different at first,”  
“Different from what Ty?” Mom whispered.   
“I don’t wanna talk about this,”

“Josh beat you up in front of the police. They said he snapped and started beating the shit out of you even with them surrounding him, and they had to drag him away - that wasn’t the first time he hit you, was it?” She posed a loaded question, and Tyler blinked, noticing for the first time how swollen his left eye was. At this point in his life he didn’t even notice the bruises anymore.   
“No.”

“Was he hurting you from the very start?”  
“No.”  
“When did it start?”  
“Couple months in.”  
“Fucking Hell, you guys have been together almost 5 years! 5 years Ty, and you never tried escaping??” Dad called him out.   
“Of course I fucking did Dad! I tried and tried and tried! The first time he punched me, I packed my shit and I left and he fucking chased me down the street and dragged me back by my wrist and then talked to me for hours until I forgave him. He manipulated me! He manipulated me constantly, made me think it was my fault, made me believe I was causing him to lash out, guilt tripped me into thinking I was turning him into someone he wasn’t, threatened to kill himself if I ever left, stripped me of my self esteem until I thought I was so unlovable that he was doing me a favour by keeping me in his life. He broke me, Dad! He fucking tore me apart! And still after 3 years of that constant influence, I still built up the courage to try and leave one final time, and you know what happened? He pushed me down the concrete stairs of our apartment building. I didn’t fall! I didn’t fucking fall! He pushed me!”

Tyler gasped for breath. 

“He pushed me and then when the hospital discharged me, he took such good care of me. Things changed, he stopped being so aggressive, he was softer and warmer and more caring than he’d ever been before, and I fucking liked it! Okay?? I liked when he looked after me! And then he started putting the poison in my food, and I got sicker, and then he got the feeding tube so he could put more in without me tasting it and I got even sicker and I didn’t know why, but he looked after me so incredibly well, he was like a whole new person, and I needed that! I needed him to love me! I needed him to care!”  
“Ty,”

“Maybe it sounds so fucking easy and obvious from the outside, leave the guy who’s poisoning you, but fuck you if you think saying that changes anything. You weren’t there! You don’t understand! The only other person there was Josh, alright?! He’s the only other person on the whole fucking planet who knew what was going on and that bound us in a way you will never truly understand! I loved him! I love him! I do, I love him! I know it’s unhealthy and toxic and abusive and manipulative and all those other fucking buzz words, but until you’re in my position, until you’re completely torn apart and then nursed and cared for until you feel whole again by that same individual, you will never get what it is I’m feeling. I relied on him for everything, I depended on him to not only physically look after me, but I needed him to give me my sense of worth and purpose and just everything, so, so, so to walk away I was not only risking him finding out and torturing me even more, I was risking losing the only person in my life who cared enough to invest his time in me,”

“You, you don’t understand, I can’t,”  
“You don’t have to look whilst I put it in, I do this all day every single day, I know what I’m doing and nothing will go wrong, I promise,”  
“No I know, I’m, I'm not doubting your ability to do it, I’m just telling you that I can’t cope with having an IV in me, so if you place it, I’m only going to pull it out again.” Tyler told the nurse quietly.   
“So you’re determined to resist it no matter what I say?”  
“I’m not resisting, I’m trying to, um, I’m trying to explain to you that I literally cannot do that so I don’t want to waste your time, I want to arm you with the information I have in hopes of you being able to come up with a better alternative that works for both of us.”

Tyler hadn’t been able to speak that clearly in a long time. 

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that, sir. I appreciate you’re phobic and this is difficult for you, but you need to be receiving treatment that’s best delivered through this IV catheter I’m going to place,”  
“He’s not phobic, he’s traumatised,” Mom stated firmly, even without knowing all the details.   
“Would numbing cream help? So you don’t feel the needle?”   
“It’s not the needle, I’m okay with needles, it’s the actual IV itself,”

The nurse sighed heavily. 

“Let me speak to the charge nurse and the doctor, see what they have to say, but I warn you that the likely outcome of those conversations is going to be insistence of implementation, and if you’re continuing to be non compliant then we might need to have you seen by psych to get a hold put on you that allows us to treat you without your consent,”  
“I’m gonna freak and pull the thing out whether you have a psych hold on me or not,”  
“Depending on psych’s opinion, we might be granted the ability to use restraints on you that prevent you from being able to do such a thing.”

“You’re gonna tie me down?”   
“We don’t want to, it’s a last resort, but you’re very poorly Tyler and by refusing treatment, you’re potentially endangering your life.”  
“It’s not intentional, it’s not an active choice, I, I, I don’t want to be difficult-“  
“You’re not being difficult Tyler, you’re not.” Mom looked him straight in the eyes as she spoke. “You’re fresh out of a long term abusive relationship, you’re not being difficult, you’re a human being with valid fears and triggers, and you’re being incredibly self aware and mature and insightful by sharing those with us. You’re not being difficult.”

“I want to say yes, I want to be able to have an IV, I just really don’t think I can,”  
“Like I said, I’ll speak to my colleagues. This is a unique set of circumstances so I really don’t know what they’ll say, but I’ll investigate your options, okay?”  
“O-okay, thank you,”

Tyler let go of his anxious breath and rested his head against the back of the elevated bed for a moment, trying to keep himself calm and not let the pressure of an impending IV push him over the edge yet again. He had to try harder to maintain his resolve, having already lost it twice that day already. 

“We won’t let them tie you down, kid. We’re your closest relatives so legally we can override the psych hold.” Dad offered.   
“K, thanks.”

It was uncomfortable between them. 

After pouring out his heart, his mom had climbed into his bed and held him as he sobbed, which Dad watched for a while then excused himself, returning 20 minutes later, stinking of the cigarettes he’d been promising to give up for years. 

Tyler knew his dad didn’t understand, he barely understood healthy gay relationships so to try and get him to comprehend the elaborate and still unfolding scenario he’d been trapped in for the past half decade was a big ask. But then again, all he was really asking for was a little bit of compassion, and yet he could still sense his dad judging him for how long he’d endured the relationship with Josh. 

“Afternoon, I’m Dr Slater, I’ve been told you’d like to speak to a doctor about treatment options?”  
“Kinda, yeh,” he felt his whole body tense up as the man entered the room. “I’m, um, I, I don’t feel comfortable having an IV or NG tube and the nurse said she had to replace them and I really don’t think I can cope, so, um, yeah, do I have any other choices?”  
“Can I ask why it is that you’re not comfortable with either of those methods of giving treatment?”  
“Um, I just, I just can’t,”

“Can I tell him sweetheart?” Mom checked and Tyler sniffed then nodded. “The relationship Ty just escaped involved medical abuse, his partner, ex-partner, was making him sick on purpose, which included feeding him insecticide through a feeding tube he placed himself, and then he also started giving Tyler IVs at home with 0 training as well in an attempt to seem caring,”  
“I saw the photos the police took,” the doctor nodded along. 

Tyler didn’t remember the police taking photos. He remembered accidentally confessing and then he remembered Josh’s nostrils flaring, but the rest was a blur. Apparently as well as missing the part where Josh beat him black and blue, he also missed the evidence logging the police had done. He was scared of what those photos might be used for, knowing they’d likely follow him around for a long time to come. 

“The IVs were always in the wrong place, you said your arm used to swell up to double the size, right sweetie? Which was obviously incredibly painful, and not something he wants to be reminded of. Then as for the feeding tube, he was poisoned through it so surely it’s understandable he’s not ready to be exposed to that reminder so soon. They’re triggers for him, you get that, right?”

“It’s definitely understandable, I appreciate what a tricky situation this is Tyler and I’m grateful for how tolerant you’ve been so far. Overcoming the struggles of surviving munchausen by proxy-“  
“I, I don’t have that, I, I’m, I’ve just got poisoning, and epilepsy from a head injury, or, um, that, that might have been the poison too, I don’t know, but not that,”  
“Well you haven’t had any seizures whilst you’ve been here, and we’ll continue monitoring you, but hopefully that will be resolved now you’re in a safe environment.” The doctor smiled slightly. 

“Munchausen by proxy is actually referring to what your abuser did to you, it’s a mental health condition where a caregiver induces or fabricates an illness in a dependent and-“  
“Hang on a second, let’s not start throwing around terms like mental illness. It was abuse, pure and simple, don’t go around giving him the excuse of a mental health problem, because that takes the weight of the blame away from him - he was a violent abuser and deserves all the punishment he’s going to get, not the defence of a supposed mental health problem,” Mom stepped in.

“It doesn’t change the fact that what he did to you has been horrific Tyler, and I’m not diagnosing him with anything, nor am I trying to explain away the legitimacy of the cruelty he enacted in you, all I’m doing is giving you the name so you have some of the information you need to feel empowered. Now you know the name, munchausen by proxy, or more specifically in your case, munchausen by adult proxy, you can google resources, find support groups, read books, I think there’s a few movies out there, although be careful about media re-enactments, and I’m sure there are blogs and accessible medical journals and plenty of other sources - it can give you a way to find others like you that understand what you’ve been through, who can help guide you through what is gonna be a difficult few months of getting yourself back on your feet, physically and mentally,”  
“Munchausen?” Tyler whispered.   
“Munchausen by adult proxy, the difference being someone else did it to you, rather than doing it yourself,” the man explained to him. 

“Does he need the tubes or not?” Dad asked from the corner, clearly not too impressed by the time being devoted to discussing what he saw as unimportant.   
“Medically, yes. If I was looking at your charts in a vacuum, I would definitely recommend needing both an IV and an NG, but in reality we can’t treat the body without addressing the mind, so I need to weigh up to what extent protecting your mental health is going to damage your body and whether that’s a risk we can take,”

“What, what medicine do I actually need? Josh told me I needed all this stuff that I didn’t,”  
“You can trust me, Tyler. I know it’s not that simple, I know me saying that probably doesn’t change much, but I think it’s important you know that I’ve been a doctor for 13 years now, I went to school for 11 years, I have a whole team supporting me, and I know what I’m doing. I’m trained and certified to be giving medical advice and treatments, and what I’m saying is backed up by huge stacks of evidence. This isn’t somebody else tricking or manipulating-“  
“You are manipulating me,”  
“Ty,” Mom warned.   
“I’m just saying, you’re trying to convince me you’re right and if I don’t agree then I’m putting myself at risk. He had the same game.”  
“I’m sorry Tyler, I didn’t mean to make you remember, I apologise. Should I just answer the question about medicine?”  
“Yeh,” he played with his fingers. 

“Medically we’ve got a lot going on. You’ve sustained chronic exposure to a poison, but furthermore excessive exposure to unnecessary drugs, many of which your body is now physically dependent on, and if we cut you off straight away then you’d have debilitating and dangerous withdrawals, so what we’re doing is weaning you off all the medications you were previously on, plus also introducing some new ones that actually are needed. They’re needed to control those withdrawals, manage your pain, calm down a lot of inflammation you have, support your liver and kidneys, and also to keep you settled emotionally Tyler. Furthermore you’re dangerously underweight and dehydrated, which is where the NG feeds and fluids would come in.”  
“Yeh,”

“Now if we’re saying we absolutely cannot tolerate an NG tube or IV cannula then we’d instead be looking for you to swallow lots of your medication and calories and fluids, and we’d also need to inject some of the meds. How would you feel about injections?”  
“Okay I think?”  
“Alright, good, and taking dozens of pills a day?”  
“Prefer it to, um, to an IV,”  
“Okay, we can do that, and drinking plenty of high calorie meal replacements like fortisips in addition to lots of water?”  
“I’ll try?”  
“Good, okay, we’ll trial that then, see how you do,” Dr Slater checked his watch. “My shift ends in about 8 hours, so I’ll go and set this up for you Tyler, write out new scripts and notes to make sure no nurses attempt to place another IV, and then I’ll swing by in about, hmm, let’s say 6 hours to see how you’re coming along and then if we’ve got any issues there’s time for us to tackle them before the end of the day. How does that sound?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ****Skip the first 6 paragraphs to avoid mentions of food/weight gain****

“You need help to tuck in?”  
“Please,”  
“3, 2,” Mom counted before pushing the chair fully under the kitchen table, not giving him any gap where he could drop food onto his lap. “Cane’s going over here,”  
“Thanks,” he looked to see her balancing his walking aid against the counter as she headed back to grab their bowls for them. 

“How’d you sleep?” Dad asked, attention still very much on the crossword puzzle he was doing from that morning’s paper at the head of the table.   
“Bit better, yeah,”  
“Nightmares?”  
“Uh huh, but, um, only one super bad one, the rest were, uh, the rest were okay,”  
“Good son,” he mumbled, putting in another few letters without looking up. 

“You’ve got a busy day today so you need to eat up, alright darling?”  
“I will,” he whispered as Mom put his bowl of oats in front of him, scattered with raspberries, then also a side plate with two pieces of heavily buttered toast, and a tall glass of store bought fruit smoothie, and a 250ml high calorie Fortisip bottle. 

It was overwhelming. How much food the doctors, and so his mom, expected him to eat was always overwhelming, it always made him feel incredibly nauseous, sometimes he’d throw up, and whenever it got that far, it usually spilled over into a panic attack as his brain remembered all the times Josh had made him puke. 

Nevertheless he had to eat in order to gain back the weight he’d lost, which again was a tricky process. It wasn’t that he liked how his body looked as a skeleton, like was the wrong word for it, but the immense rate at which he’d been swelling up was difficult to be completely at peace with, and the stretch marks on his hips made him cry when nobody else was around. 

But no, he had to push on, he had to eat his breakfast. 

“Do you remember your schedule for today?”  
“Yeh,”  
“Prove it? Tell me what’s happening?” One time, one singular time, Tyler had got confused and taken a taxi to his group therapy venue rather than his individual therapist’s office, and upon finding the community centre empty and the taxi gone, had a massive panic attack. He hadn’t been thinking straight, didn’t have access to logical thought, so didn’t call anybody but instead cowered behind the building for hours and hours until the search party eventually found him in the middle of the night. 

Now Mom grilled him on the details of his schedule every morning, and had his therapists text her to confirm his arrival at every appointment. 

“You’ll drop me off at physio on your way to work, Darryl will meet me at the door and take me to whichever gym we’re using today, then at the end of the session I’ll sit in the lobby for 45 minutes and rest and I can get a hot chocolate from the receptionist if I want, and then she’ll call me a taxi, I’ll tell the taxi to go to group therapy-“  
“Address?”  
“Brookside community hall,”  
“Good,”  
“And then at the end of group, I get Lee to call me a taxi home, I’ll come in and have lunch,”  
“How are you getting in?”  
“Key under the 3rd pot, and lunch is in the fridge, and then I can have a nap or watch TV or whatever, and then you’re home at 5.45,”  
“And that all feels okay?”  
“Yeh,”  
“Any questions?”  
“No,”  
“Good,”

Tyler knew he’d be tested a couple more times before he was dropped off at physio. He appreciated how much energy his mom put into ensuring he felt secure in his day, but sometimes he wanted to be treated and trusted like the adult he was. 

“Any word on when you can start driving again? These taxis add up,”  
“Chris, don’t - the money’s not important, what’s important is we have our son back, and he’s getting the help he needs.”  
“I know I know, still though, you wanna drive right?” He put his paper down and picked up his black coffee instead.   
“I guess. Physio say I’m nearly ready but, um, still waiting on psych’s thumbs up.”   
“They think, what, you’re gonna go 90 into a brick wall or summat?”   
“Oh my god Chris, seriously? At the breakfast table?!”  
“I’m curious! This, this mental stuff, it isn’t my world, I don’t know how all this works, I’m only asking!”  
“Yeh no, um, that’s, um, I’m not suicidal so that’s not the main reason they’re saying no. Um, there’s, there’s lots of decisions you have to make when you’re driving, like time sensitive and potentially high risk decisions about changing lanes or whatever and I’m not so good with the pressure of having to make decisions on the spot and they don’t want me getting freaked out behind the wheel, so, um, gotta work on decision making and stress management a bit more first.”

“How long till we get the next report from his therapist?” Dad turned to Mom.   
“We only get 2 included in the insurance policy, we agreed with Dr Zhang to get an initial and a final, so if we want a formal update then we’ll have to pay out of pocket.”  
“How much?”  
“Same rate as a session, $150 an hour, so depends on however long it takes him to write it,”  
“Or you just could ask me for free?” Tyler shrugged uncomfortably, nibbling at his toast.   
“How you think you’re progressing might be very different from how Zhang thinks you’re progressing. I’d prefer a professional opinion,”  
“No no, go on, how’d you think you’re coming along sweetie?”

He took another bite of his toast, bigger and dryer, scraping its way down his throat as he forced himself to gulp. 

“I think I’m doing better,”  
“You’re feeling better?” She smiled widely.   
“Yeh, um, safer, or whatever,”

Tyler knew that was supposed to be the result of the therapies, and more importantly he knew it was what his parents wanted to hear. 

It had been a little more than 9 weeks since he’d been removed from Josh’s care. He spent 10 days in hospital to get through the worst of the withdrawals, then he’d been sent to live with his parents. After 2 days to supposedly relax but mostly to cry in his childhood bedroom a lot, Mom got in touch with a physical rehabilitation centre and arranged for him to participate in a week long inpatient physiotherapy intensive. 

After so long being confined to a bed, his muscles had wasted away and he’d been too weak to stand, let alone walk. At the start of the intensive he’d been reliant on a wheelchair and they’d focussed on basics like having the core strength and balance to sit unsupported, and by the end of the fifth day he’d managed 60 seconds on a treadmill with a harness taking his weight and two therapists controlling his feet. 

Since then he’d been going for hour long physio sessions 3 times a week, plus working on his homework tasks in his own time, and he’d come a long way. It was tiring and frustrating and at times demeaning, but at least with the physical stuff he could see the difference with each session. At the start he was nowhere and now he could walk short distances, such as within the house, using only a cane for support, and longer distances with just a rollater. He could see the progress. 

As for the psych crap, the one-on-one sessions and the groups, he really couldn’t see any change at all. No breakthroughs, no revelations, no life changing moments, barely even a surface scraped. He couldn’t tell whether his therapist was bad or he was still too closed off and defensive, but he genuinely felt like he was trying his very best and yet he still left every session feeling the same as he did when he went in. Lonely. 

He didn’t dare tell his parents that though. 

“Do you ever think about him anymore?”  
“Who?”  
“You know who, Ty,”  
“Oh, him, uh,” he crammed more toast in to give him a moment to think, “no, I haven’t thought about him in weeks.”

“I can’t,”  
“Tyler,”  
“Please? I’m tired, the session is basically over now anyway, and it’s too difficult, and I’m tired and I’ve got stuff to do after this that I’m gonna be too tired for. Can we call it a day? Please Darryl?”  
“You can have results or you can have excuses, but you can’t have both. Come on, once more on each side for me Tyler,” 

He sighed, running his hand through his sweaty hair as he lay on the mat, trying to summon the energy from somewhere to power through the final exercise. 

They were teaching him how to stand up from the ground. It was fucking difficult. He had to roll onto his front, push up onto all fours, push back onto high knees, swing one leg through and put his foot on ground like he was proposing, then push up with the other leg and raise himself to standing. It combined all the things he’d been working on for the last 2 months, and at the end of a difficult session, he was already completely exhausted and ready for bed. 

“We doing this Ty? Or are you satisfied with giving up on yourself?”  
“No, no, I’ll do it, just gimme a sec,”   
“Good lad,”

Darryl couldn’t be much older than Tyler, in fact he was probably younger, but he was also handsome and married and ripped and skilled and had his life together so much more than the man who was sweating in his Angry Birds promotional T shirt, trying to roll over. Sometimes he made him feel inferior, other days he was an inspiration. It varied. 

“Good Ty, spread the weight evenly across your shoulders, more on the left. That’s it,” the physio kept his hands nearby as Tyler flopped onto his stomach and then pressed through the ground as hard as he could, forcing his heavy upper body upwards until there was enough room to creep his knees forwards. He was on all 4s! 

“Balance, engage those abs we’ve worked so hard to build,” Darryl reminded him as he went up onto just his knees, hands out to the side for balance, wobbling a little. “Let’s do your right leg first,”  
“I’m gonna fall,”  
“The floor is soft, I’m right here, I won’t let you hurt yourself. Trust that leg to carry you,”

His instinct was to go fast, to minimise the window in which he might tumble, but physio was all about learning the technique and that took time. So, against his urges, he slowed himself down and put his right foot a little way in front of him, overcompensating by leaning too far the other way, but correcting himself without needing Darryl. 

“You got it, swing that left through, you got it,”

Tyler grit his teeth and grunted as he used all his strength to pull himself up to standing, taking 3 stumbling steps forwards with the momentum, only for Darryl to leap up and catch him. 

“Nice one, let’s do the same again with the other leg leading, then we’ll wrap this up, yeah? Let’s end on a high, end strong,”  
“Uh huh,” he was slightly out of breath as he slumped back down to the ground, laying down and momentarily contemplating staying there. 

“Don’t go falling asleep on me mister, come on,”  
“Just so tired,”  
“You’ve worked really hard today Ty, in fact you’ve been working really hard consistently the past few weeks so it’s understandable how drained you are. Remember to be gentle with yourself and rest plenty, yeah?”  
“Yeah,”  
“Just not in my gym,” Darryl clapped twice. “Lemme see you moving,”

With his arms shaking as they filled with lactic acid, Tyler once again rolled and pushed himself up into something of a plank, shuffling his knees closer and closer until he felt able to sit up tall on them. 

“Other leg,” Darryl guided his left knee forwards and up until his foot connected with the floor. He gave him a moment to balance. “We know this one’s harder, but we also know you can do it. Show me how well you can do it buddy,”

He didn’t feel secure, he felt rushed, but he knew the sooner he did it the sooner it was over, so with all his might he catapulted himself onto his feet, but the balance and weight distribution was all wrong as he staggered and before he knew it, he’d tripped. 

“Alright, alright Ty, I got you,” thankfully Darryl was there to catch him before he hit the ground, helping him to stand back up right. “You okay for a second whilst I get Rolly?”  
“Yeh,” he caught his breath as his physiotherapist jogged to the wall and got him his rollator. 

It had a little seat between the handles and he took the opportunity to perch on it, relieved their session was finally done. 

“Well done Ty, you’ve done awesome today,”  
“Thanks,”  
“Take the rest of the day to relax, do your stretches before bed, then tomorrow I want you working on stairs with your momma how we did last week for at least 10 minutes, and our next session we’ll have a go at setting a new PB on the treadmill, what do you say?”  
“Sounds good,”

“I’ve not got long until my next client arrives; do you need me to find anybody to help you out either in the locker room or with escorting you to the lobby?”  
“No no, I can handle it,”   
“Alright bud, but if you need anything then shout or pull a cord, we’ll be straight through,”  
“I, um, I should be okay,”

“Again, good job today Tyler, if you keep this up you’ll be back to full strength in no time,” Darryl grinned encouragingly. “You’re making me proud, keep on keeping on,”  
“I will, I promise,”  
“We’re all rooting for you,”

The clinic knew what had happened to him, which meant Darryl knew what had happened to him, and Tyler struggled to truly accept compliments from people who knew what had happened to him, because the knowledge invaded their brain with pity that clouded their judgement. They’d never look at him the same. For all Tyler knew, he was doing dreadfully and Darryl was only saying nice things because he felt bad for him. It gave everything a suspicious shadow that made him uncomfortable. 

“I’ve got another, um, another appointment, so I should probably get going, but, uh, but thanks for today,”  
“You’re welcome champ, see you soon,”  
“Bye,” Tyler stood up, grateful to have his rollator to lean on as he slowly walked away from the gym and headed to the changing room instead. 

His locker that day was number 7, and since it was an accessible rehab facility, there were no tricky keys to fiddle with, instead a simple wave of the magnet on his wristband unlocked the door, allowing him to pull out his kit bag and put it on the seat of his Rolly. 

The showers were accessible too, big spacious cubicles that had plenty of room for him to enter with his walking aid. There was a shower chair in there which he sat on as he stripped off, tossing his sweaty gear to the side with significantly more ease than even just a few days ago, before reaching up and twisting the dial for water. 

They didn’t have a shower chair at home. They were cheap and didn’t require any installation, but Dad suggested Tyler should just take baths instead of taking up space in their admittedly small bathroom. He didn’t mind the baths he supposed, however the hot high pressure water on his scalp was a welcome sensation, and the flashbacks of Josh bathing him were harder to cope with than he’d admit.

Not allowing himself to get caught up on that thought, Tyler concentrated on washing his hair and then his sweaty body, wanting to be as clean as possible before eventually shutting off the water and diving into his bag for his towel. 

Drying himself off was a hard task when standing was taxing, but he’d become something of a pro in recent times, managing to towel down, using the grab bars on the wall strategically. 

Eventually the time came to put his clothes on. Ever since he’d been home, he hadn’t had the energy or will to dress nicely, he’d been living in oversized sweatpants and hoodies and today was no exception. He wanted to look nice, of course he did, it was a special day, but he didn’t want his parents or anybody else involved in his care to get suspicious if they saw him in a shirt. Oversized hoodie it was. 

Once he was dressed and did a secondary towelling of his hair - short thanks to the recent buzz - Tyler left the shower and the locker room and headed towards reception with a small smile brewing. He was excited. 

“Oh hey Tyler, I was wondering when you were gonna come back. How was your session?”  
“Good, yeah, he works me hard but that’s good,”  
“Wonderful! Do you want your hot chocolate now or a bit later?”  
“Um, actually I think I’m gonna head straight to my next appointment? I’ve got a friend there and we’re gonna meet beforehand, so, um, yeah, thanks for the offer, I’ll take you up on it next time, but can I get a cab instead please?”  
“Oh that sounds nice! And you’re actually in luck, someone just got dropped off and the cabbie decided to wait outside, so if you head out the door and take a right then you should be able to see him,”  
“Thanks, um, see you soon?”  
“See you soon,” the receptionist smiled as he made his way out of the double set of automatic doors. 

Sure enough, there was a black car waiting with a man up front, reading a book with the spine bent backwards. 

“Hi, are you available?”  
“Sure am, lemme come help you with that,” he looked up and saw his walker, so opened his door. “Where will it be to?”  
“Columbus Correctional Facility,”

  
“ID and visiting order,”  
“Umm, yeh,” Tyler rooted around in his bag before finding his driving license and the slip of paper sent by the prison, saying Josh had requested he visit. 

“Your date of birth?”  
“December 1st, 88,”  
“Relationship to inmate?”  
“Boyfriend,”  
“And this is your first visit?” The lady behind the glass slid his ID back but kept the form.   
“Yeh,”  
“Sign here to say you’re not bringing anything on this list into the facility,”  
“Uh huh,” he scribbled his name. 

Tyler gulped as she typed things, his stomach unsure whether it was excited or nervous. 

“Alright you can go through security, speak to an officer about getting permission from the superintendent for your walker, or else you might need to go without or use our regulation wheelchair,”  
“Right,” Tyler hadn’t even considered that he might not be allowed Rolly. It didn’t seem dangerous until his brain started imagining all the ways the inmates could tear it apart for scraps and use the sharp metal to hurt him. 

He took a calming deep breath. 

“Next,”  
“Hi, um, the lady said to ask if I can have my rollator?”  
“You’re a bit young for a granny walker aren’t you?” The guard frowned.   
“It’s not, it’s, um, my physio gave it to me, it’s, it’s not just for grannies,”  
“My Nanna’s got one just like this - hey Mike! Look at this bad boy!” The guard called to his friend, laughing at it, laughing at Tyler. 

“The hell you need it for?”  
“I, I get tired,”  
“Tired? Boohoo, who doesn’t?”  
“No, I, uh, my, my muscles,”  
“Keeping talking pal, cos right now you’re not making a very good argument for why I should let that thing through,”  
“I have muscular atrophy,”  
“You mean muscular dystrophy? My kid’s got a kid in his class with that and you ain’t got it, trust, so don’t go lying to my face like that.”  
“Atrophy, it’s different, I, I, I, please?”

The guard sighed. 

“Wait here,”

Tyler felt his face going pink and his eyes tearing up. He didn’t like being mocked. He didn’t like being doubted. He didn’t like being humiliated and made to feel vulnerable and small. He didn’t like that he still didn’t feel able to defend himself. 

“Yeh no, you’re not taking that in,” the other man he’d gone to get said immediately.   
“I can’t visit?” Tyler whispered.   
“You can, the granny wheeler can’t.”  
“I need it, I can’t walk more than a few steps unsupported,”  
“Do you have a note from your doctor saying that?”  
“Not with me,”  
“So you’ve got no evidence for me that you need a walker,”  
“No,”   
“Alright, show me then,”  
“Ssshow you what?  
“Sssshsssshhhow me you can’t walk,” the more senior guard ridiculed him, then pushed the rollator away from him. 

Determined not to cry, desperate not to cry, Tyler forced himself to put one foot in front of another, wanting to seem strong to the men, but not so strong they’d deny him help, and only after 7 steps did his knee buckle. He fell to floor hard, slamming his hip but hurting his pride more. He didn’t want to cry but it was fucking hard not to. 

“Woah, you okay there? You need to see a medic?” Another visitor rushed over to help him back up.   
“No no, uh, I mean yeah, yes I’m okay, no medic, I’m okay, I’m fine,” Tyler’s breath was shaking, eyes flicking around too quickly as he struggled to fend off the wave of tears.   
“Take it easy,”  
“Tha-anks,” he cringed at his own stammer, dreading the guards picking on him for that. 

“Here’s the deal, you can take your walker if you want a closed visit, or you can have a walking stick from lost and found, but you can’t have your granny roller for an open visit,”  
“What’s a, um, a closed visit?”  
“Behind glass. Open visit you’re at the same table.” He crossed his arms and sighed. “We ain’t got all day, what’s it to be Stumbles?”  
“Open with a walking stick. Please.”  
“God, I’m gonna hit my step quota by noon. Gimme.” The guard grumbled as he snatched his Rolly and walked off with it. 

“Where’s he taking it?” Tyler was scared to ask the original guard.   
“Calm your tits, you’ll get it back. Go through the scanner,” he didn’t seem to remember Tyler slamming into the ground a few seconds ago, and instead expected him to walk through the airport style metal detector. 

Too scared to argue, trapped in the mindset of obedience, Tyler edged his way through the arch with a throbbing hip. 

“Feet apart, arms out,” he went to search Tyler, but when he was too slow to move, just kicked his foot to the side and almost made him fall again. His hands ran all over him, touching him firmly and roughly, with no regard for how quick Tyler’s breathing had become. 

“Don’t take this off,” the guard slapped a bright sticker on his chest, even the force of the pat pushing him off balance for a moment, then finally the guard seemed to lose interest in him and went to search the next person, leaving him leaning against the wall, hyperventilating. 

He reminded himself how close he was to Josh. He’d waited so long for this moment, worked so hard to get there, all he had to do was hold on a little longer. 

“Granny, you get this back to me by end of visiting hours or I keep your little toy and stick your little boyfriend in the block with the nastiest homophobes indefinitely, got it?”  
“Got it,” Tyler couldn’t look him in the eyes as he took the old fashioned wooden cane from him and found immediate relief in the weight it could bare. 

The other visitors on that side of security were avoiding him, clearly put off by his aura of panic. He felt so out of place. All he wanted to do was curl up on the floor and sob and sob and sob, but instead he had to stand there, thighs shaking, until another guard arrived. 

“Group A visitors, let’s go,” he rounded them all up and started walking far too fast. “Quick reminder, everybody’s got 60 minutes. 30 seconds contact time at the start and end for hugs, hands above the table at all times, listen to the guards, we reserve the right to end your visit at any time, and if you need the bathroom then signal and someone will escort you but you won’t be able to return to the visiting hall. Questions?” 

Tyler was having to put too much concentration into his gait and using the cane that was the wrong length for him and had a slippy curved handle to be able to form any questions, and before he knew it, they’d arrived at a set of doors that took them into the hall. 

He was at the back of the pack so queued as everyone else found their table, until finally there was only one table left, with a man in an orange jumpsuit facing the opposite wall. Just from his shaved hair, Tyler knew it was him. 

“Josh?”  
“Ty! Oh my god baby, oh look at you, you look amazing,” Josh stood up and immediately held his arms out for Tyler to collapse into, pressing his head against Josh’s chest for the first time in far too long. The moment Josh’s lips touched Tyler’s head, he burst into tears. 

“I’ve got you, it’s okay Ty,“

He couldn’t breathe. It was incredible to be back in his arms. 

“You’re safe baby, I’ve got you, you’re okay,”  
“I-I-I m-miss-missed y-you,”  
“I missed you two angel, I missed you so freaking much - can I get a kiss?” 

Even though Tyler would stay melting in his embrace forever if he could, he knew their time allowance was running short and so lifted his chin and found Josh’s lips, knowing he was crying and snotty and not attractive at all but feeling special that Josh loved him anyway. 

“Siddown! Everybody! Break it up! That’s your first 30!” The head guard demanded and so begrudgingly Tyler had to pull himself away, sitting down at the table. Josh stayed standing, looming above him. 

“You remember to bring money for the vending machine?”  
“Y-Yeh,” he hiccuped, digging into his pocket and handing Josh a couple of dollars which he snatched off him and raced over to the far wall with. 

He knew he couldn’t begin to appreciate how excited Josh was to have the opportunity to choose some snacks after 9 weeks of prison food, and Tyler was happy Josh was so excited, but took the few minutes to continue crying, overwhelmed by absolutely everything. He was tired from physio and his body hurt from falling and his feelings felt trampled by the guards, and more than anything he missed Josh. He missed him endlessly. He didn’t want life to be like this anymore, restricted and in the shadows, he just wanted the love of his life back home with him. 

They’d been calling a lot. His parents couldn’t know, if they knew then they’d ruin everything, so it had to be done in secret, which meant Josh having Jordan drop off a secret burner phone for Tyler so they could talk a couple of times a week when his family weren’t around, but today was the first time Tyler had the physical strength and the confidence to make his way to the prison, and he was so glad he had. Josh was worth it all. 

“I got you a Red Bull,”  
“Th-thanks,” Tyler took the can off him, tearfully smiling at his two packs of Cheetos, a KitKat and a Sprite, glad he could help even a little bit. He felt so guilty, it was because of his mistake that Josh was trapped in there. 

“You look great Ty,”  
“I’m g-gaining we-weight,”  
“That’s probably good, right? You’ve always struggled to keep it up,”  
“Y-yeh,”  
“And I didn’t even mean in that way, of course you look handsome and gorgeous and beautiful, but I meant you look really strong and steady on your feet. You look healthy,”  
“I f-fell,”  
“You fell? When?”  
“In s-security,”  
“Just then? Oh Ty, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”  
“My hip a b-bit,”  
“Tell your mom or your doctor or whoever? I’m, um, I’m not really meant to be giving out medical advice at the moment,”

Josh laughed at himself somewhat uncomfortably, then sighed, smiling sadly at Tyler. 

“I m-miss y-you,” Tyler reached across the table and thankfully Josh reached back, intertwining their fingers, stroking the side of his hand with his thumb soothingly.   
“I’ll be home before you know it,”

“Did the lawyer s-say anything e-else?”   
“I saw him yesterday and he seemed happy. He thinks he can talk the poison with intent to harm charge down from endangering life to actual bodily harm which slashes the penalty in half, and he’s found a psychiatrist who’s willing to come see me and diagnose me with that mental illness you told me about, the munchie thing, so that would be really good for my defence. And Jordan and Ashley have both agreed to back me up when talking about the crap that happened to me when I was a kid because he thinks the jury will be more sympathetic and it can be used as a mitigating factor or whatever. As for the assault charge they witnessed when they came to get you, he thinks we can explain it away by using panic because of my bad history with police. So yeah, uh, the last bit just comes down to your testimony really. They can’t prove beyond reasonable doubt any of the other domestic charges unless you work with the prosecution, so as long as you’re on my side, I could be home for your next birthday. We’ll see,”  
“Of c-course I’m on your s-side, Josh, I love y-you,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading - this is something a bit different for me so please leave feedback <3
> 
> Hope everyone is keeping safe and well, remember to continue fiercely advocating for Black Lives Matter, and I’ll see you on the next one
> 
> Twitter: anathemasparks  
> Tumblr: anathematrash  
> Email for fan art or translation enquiries (thank you!): ao3.maisie@gmail.com 
> 
> Also Russian translation of this coming soon, check the summary for a link when it’s available! Xx


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